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 single-cylinder motorbike in the distance.

    Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Er… no. It’s Merlin, the world’s loudest cat.

    With a growl that can drown out the noise of a dishwasher, he has just secured a Guinness World Record for the domestic cat with the highest decibel-rated purr.

    It officially peaked at an impressive 67.8 dB — 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.”

    His formidable purr emerged soon after Westwood brought Merlin home from a rescue center near her home in Torquay, Devon, in England, 13 years ago. Even as a kitten, he could make more of a racket than a full-grown cat. 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 Westwood read about Smokey, a cat that held the loudest-purr record since 2011 with a 67.68 dB rating. She instinctively knew Merlin could out-purr him.

    “Occasionally when he’s really loud I have to repeat myself,” said Westwood. “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.”

    Recordings taken with a smartphone app clocked the black and white cat at peaks of between 98 dB and 100 dB, which, if accurate, would have ranked him alongside Maria Sharapova, one of tennis’s champion grunters; and only 10 dB below the noise of a pneumatic drill.

    Merlin is making a bid for stardom as part of a TV show called “Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud 2” on the Channel 5.(SD-Agencies)