01-30-2012, 10:12 PM
From National Geographic: Weird & Wild: Male Mice Have âSinging Voicesâ
Quote:Think twice the next time you call someone as quiet as a mouseâthe rodents are actually sophisticated singers, a new study says.
For the first time, scientists caught wild male house mice and used digital audio software to examine the durations, pitches, and frequencies of their sounds.
The results revealed that the malesâ songs are more complex than mere squeaks, and that each male has a different singing âvoice.â
Scientists already knew that these melodious males sing when they smell a female, and that females are in turn attracted to their tunes. But the new research suggests it may be more complicated than that.
For instance, when slowed down, the malesâ sounds sound strikingly like those of birds. In some bird species, the males with the most complex sounds are most alluringâwhich means itâs possible male mice also use these so-called âsexy syllablesâ to snag mates, according to a statement.
The research also showed that brothersâ sounds are similar to each other when compared with songs of unrelated malesâpossibly a strategy for females to discern males and avoid inbreeding, according to the study, published recently in the journals Physiology & Behavior and the Journal of Ethology.
âIt seems as though house mice might provide a new model organism for the study of song in animals,â study author Dustin Penn, of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, said in a statement. âWho would have thought that?â
Sadly for us, mice songs arenât music to our earsâtheir sounds are ultrasonic and out of range of human hearing. But there are plenty of critters that are loud enough to make up for it.