I sea....good try Grass Hopper....but it's clear to me more and more that you have a lot to learn still...Stick with me kiddo and you might see a thing or two more if yore lucky....don't bother keeping yaw fingers crossed on that though... They are already spoken four...:)
My first thought was the whale, but then had an idea it is indeed something much tinier - but didn't know what.
You have to consider that mere volume (intensity) is not the same as power.
The whale can be heard over long distances because its voice is not only intense but very powerful, and at fairly low frequencies. It is also helped by density boundaries in the ocean, including the water surface, acting as natural wave-guides to channel the sound horizontally to some extent rather than letting it radiate in all directions. I do not know if whales instinctively "know" this - probably not. More likely they spend most of their time at shallow depths, diving deep only to feed or escape attack.
To take a terrestrial version, some species of bats can call at sound pressure levels well over 100 deciBels referred to the sound level used as the base for air acoustics*, but its range is only a few metres at best. That's partly because its call frequency is so high, but mainly because it is a tiny animal so the power available for its voice is so tiny. It synchronises calls with wing-beats, using the flight muscles across its chest to help force enough breath forcefully enough through its voice-tract.
Conversely an operatic soprano is quieter than that hungry bat, but can be heard at the back of an auditorium because her voice is much more powerful, and at much lower frequencies. (Not a matter of different voice and hearing frequency ranges anyway, but of power and intensity; plus attenuation with frequency due to the air itself.)
'
Incidentally, whales do not "sing". They grunt and squawk. That plangent effect that sends we humans dewy-eyed, is simply reverberation.)
'
*That level is 20µPa - the faintest sound pressure the fully-healthy human ear can detect. It is a staggeringly tiny 1 / 5 000 000 000 (one-five-thousand millionth) of standard atmospheric pressure. That rather puts the whispered sweet nothings barely audible in the boudoir, into some sort of perspective!
Art Lover 