Untitled Document
 When
you think of singing animals, you probably think about birds or even
whales. You may not have
thought about it, but it turns out that mice can sing, too! Hidden in the dense forests of Latin America,
male Alston mice “sing” to
attract other female mice.
You probably have a favorite musician or singer. Just
as you love to hear them sing, mice also love to hear songs. At the
University of Florida in the U.S., researcher Bret Pasch and
his team members studied Alston mice to learn more about how and what
kinds of songs they sing. They discovered that male mice
try to sing the same notes very fast and at a
very high pitch. Why? This is
because the female mouse prefers the male that has
the fastest, most high-pitched voice.
 The research
team also found that hormones called androgens in males affected how well the mice
could sing. Those with less androgen sung slower and could not reach the high notes or frequencies.
Pasch and his colleagues therefore suggest that the hormone
is linked to the muscles of the jaw and diaphragm, which affects
how fast the mouth moves and the strength of respiration.
The Alston mice are not the only mice that can sing. Other species of mice have also
been known to sing. Other species such as fish have also been found
to vocalize to attract females
or warn intruders. Isn’t it wonderful
to know that we live in such a musical world? |
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