Male Mice Have “Singing Voices”

[azulai]

From National Geographic: Weird & Wild: Male Mice Have “Singing Voices”

Think twice the next time you call someone as quiet as a mouse—the 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 males’ songs are more complex than mere squeaks, and that each male has a different singing “voice.”

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 males’ sounds sound strikingly like those of birds. In some bird species, the males with the most complex sounds are most alluring—which means it’s possible male mice also use these so-called “sexy syllables” to snag mates, according to a statement.

The research also showed that brothers’ sounds are similar to each other when compared with songs of unrelated males—possibly 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.

“It seems as though house mice might provide a new model organism for the study of song in animals,” study author Dustin Penn, of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, said in a statement. ”Who would have thought that?”

Sadly for us, mice songs aren’t music to our ears—their 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.

[Rainbowmum]

Amazing stuff.
Thank you for the great share azulai.mile:

[Genersis]

Very interesting.mile:
Thanks for sharing!:biggrin: