Studies reveal that melodic tunes from male mice attract female mice

Studies reveal that melodic tunes from male mice attract female mice

Scientists from Vienna’s University of Veterinary Medicine have found that male house mice are capable of attracting the female mice by singing melodic songs. The new study has been published in the journal Physiology & Behavior and in the Journal of Ethology.

According to the research, each mouse has its own individual signature song that has a romantic tune pitched at the ultra-sonic range which is beyond our hearing.

Before this discovery, there were doubts that the male mice have some special kind of sound for the female mice but the researchers assumed that they just squeak as usual. However, this new research has found that the doubts were true about such additional sounds.

The analysis of these special sounds has revealed that these squeaks are actually some complex individual romantic songs just like the birdsong. The scientists recorded the squeaks of the male mice and upon slowing those down afterwards, they found that these sounds have similarities to the tuneful birdsongs to be striking.

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

According to some previous studies on the behaviour of mice, the scientists found that wild mice sing when they sniff the scent of a female and the female mice are wooed by song and react to that. Now, the scientists were able to use digital audio software for the analysis of the duration, pitch and range of the songs of house mice.

The scientists said that these specific male mice songs have some special ‘fingerprints’ which are different from one individual to another including brothers just like the human DNA or fingerprints. They believe that these finding will help understanding how female mice avoid inbreeding.

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Posted by Zeeshan Gohar on Jan 27 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry