Mice also sing to flirt

The mouse may not sing to beg for food, but the mouse sings to please his partner. Researchers at the University of Washington, USA, discovered this when they eavesdropped male mice in the lab.

" Initially we recorded sounds to evaluate the factors that helped male mice recognize female mouse pheromones, but what came out proved more complex and interesting than we thought, " said Timothy E. Holy, co-author. fake research said. "However , it is unclear whether singing brings advantages to males in courtship, as in birds ."

Humans have long been hearing love songs of birds and whales, and rat songs are forgotten because they are beyond the threshold of human hearing. When Holy and co-author Zhongsheng Guo began recording the deafening sounds of 45 male rats, they quickly found these high pitched sounds with regular repetitions, or motifs, instead. change over time. In other words, they can be considered songs.

The songs of the mouse, when reduced to a few octaves so that people can hear it easily, seems no different from the song of the bird, although Holy says it still lacks the sophistication of the feathers. " It is possible to compare the song of the mouse with the song of the new birds, creating only simple motifs ."

Although the mouse's erotic weapons cannot be compared to an adult canary, the new discovery also helps to study the hereditary in singing, especially if the mouse is learned from a " tutor " like like birds. And in addition, wild rats can also possess a greater aptitude.

" The captivity has changed many factors in the behavior of mice. It will be interesting to find out if the song of the wild rat is more similar to the bird than the lab rat ."

MT ( according to Sciam )