Singing Mice Learn New Tunes
Male rodents can change notes in their songs, study says.
That's the finding of a new study by Duke University neurobiologist Erich Jarvis and his colleagues Gustavo Arriaga and Eric Zhou.
The fact that mice sing was documented in a 2005 study by assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy Timothy E. Holy and programmer Zhongsheng Guo.
To study the mice's vocalizations, which are too high for humans to hear, the researchers recorded the sounds and then slowed them down. They found that mice sing songs with melodies and repeated phrases to court female mice.
(Also see "Mouse Tears Are Aphrodisiacs.")
More than just a squeak above the limit of human hearing, the songs contain a variety of syllables and have recurring themes.
Jarvis and his colleagues went a step further. Their research, published October 10
