Noisier than a washing machine, puss with loudest purr in the world
IT starts with a warble, a little like a creature calling out in the jungle.
Then it turns to a rumble, like a train approaching from afar, or the sound of someone revving a singlecylinder motorbike in the distance.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Er... no. It’s Merlin, the world’s loudest moggy. With a growl that can drown out a washing machine, he has just secured a Guinness World Record for the domestic cat with the highest decibel-rated purr.
It officially peaked at 67.8dB – about the same as the sound of a shower or two people holding a conversation. But no-one ever talked quite like this. ‘Sometimes on the telephone I do get people asking me what that noise is in the background,’ said Merlin’s owner Tracy Westwood.
‘I tell them it’s the cat – but I don’t know if they believe me.’
She added: ‘Occasionally when he’s really loud I have to repeat myself.
‘When you’re watching films you have to turn the telly up or put him out of the room. I can hear him when I’m drying my hair.’
His formidable purr emerged soon after Mrs Westwood brought Merlin home from a rescue centre near her home in Torquay, Devon, 13 years ago. Even as a kitten, he could make more of a racket than a full-grown cat – which normally purr at a comparatively puny 25dB.
The only living soul in the mother of two’s house that couldn’t hear Merlin was her oldest dog (it was deaf).
Two years ago Mrs Westwood read about Smokey, a cat that held the loudest-purr record since 2011 with a 67.68dB rating. She instinctively knew Merlin could out-purr him.
Recordings taken with a smartphone app clocked the black and white cat between 98dB and 100dB, which, if accurate, would have ranked him alongside Maria Sharapova, one of tennis’s champion grunters; and only 10dB below the noise of a pneumatic drill.
So it was time to call in the experts. A sound engineer and an adjudicator from Guinness World Records duly arrived at the Channel 5 studio where Merlin was appearing on a show called Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud 2, which is due to be screened tonight. Using hi-tech equipment and holding a microphone a metre away and a metre above the ground, they registered Merlin’s purr at 67.8dB.
The first two readings fell disappointingly below Smokey’s record. But his title was snatched after Merlin was fortified with a bowl of tuna cat food. ‘It was amazing to see just how loud his purr was in person,’ a Guinness World Records spokesman said.
Pet behaviour expert Professor Peter Neville said: ‘No- one is really sure why cats purr.’ He said they normally did so while relaxed and happy. In which case Merlin must be one very contented cat.