A couple years ago, residents of Cape Coral, Florida began hearing thumps rumble through their homes. At first, they blamed the city’s municipal utility system, and pressured the city council to silence the thumps. The city expected to spend nearly $50,000 on the project. Then a doctoral student in marine science at the University of South Florida realized that the haunting noises were actually the mating calls of a fish called the black drum. The New York Times reports:

[James Locascio, the doctoral student] explained that at 100 to 500 hertz, black drum mating calls travel at a low enough frequency and long enough wavelength to carry through sea walls, into the ground and through the construction of waterfront homes like the throbbing beat in a passing car.

“Black drum have taken a liking to the canal system in Cape Coral,” Mr. Locascio said. “Their nightly booming is like a water drip torture that lasts for months.”

Black drums on the Gulf Coast aren’t the only creatures with bizarre mating rituals. This week on NATURE, researchers investigate species in which the normal rules of mating are turned on their head, such as the feisty female topi antelope champing at the bit to have sex with an aloof male or bonobo males practicing free love.