Outside of Pavarotti and a few other humans, humpback whales are perhaps the most famous singers on the planet. The whales' elaborate melodies and complex vocalizations have inspired musicians and wildlife lovers and spawned best-selling albums.
Now one of the largest mammals has been matched by one of the smallest. Scientists have discovered that mice sing.
Don't expect a ''Songs of the Laboratory Mouse'' CD, though. For one thing, the sounds are outside the range of human hearing. And no one knows what the mice are singing about.
But Timothy E. Holy and Zhongsheng Guo of Washington University in St. Louis analyzed the vocalizations of male mice and found that they have the characteristics of song — with distinct types of syllables uttered in phrases and motifs. The finding is reported in a paper in the journal PLoS Biology and is at dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0030386. Dr. Holy, a neurobiologist, wasn't really interested in singing mice. His research involves understanding how the brain responds to pheromones. Several decades ago, other researchers reported that when male mice smelled female pheromones, they made sounds at frequencies of 30 kilohertz and higher. So Dr. Holy started analyzing these sounds, hoping they would give clues to what is going on in mice brains.
''We kind of noticed they were a little more interesting than expected,'' he said.
Dr. Holy wrote software to lower the pitch so the sounds were audible, while keeping the timing intact. ''Upon hearing those for the first time, it made me realize the analogies to bird song,'' he said.
''Just because it sounds like a bird doesn't mean it has the character of bird song,'' Dr. Holy added. But in fact the mice songs — often hundreds of chirpy syllables long — resemble bird (and whale) songs in that certain syllables tend to be repeated.
The researchers found that individual mice sing distinct songs. Dr. Holy said that this suggested that some element of learning might be involved.
| • | And Now, Please Welcome Modest Mouse
OBSERVATORY New York Times, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005 Byline: Henry Fountain |
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| • | American idols? Mice can sing, scientists learn
Chirps are part of a courting ritual, a Washington University researcher says St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005 Byline: Eric Hand |
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| • | Mice squeak into song
Ultrasonic vocalizations from lab animals show musical traits Nature Magazine (UK), Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005 Byline: Roxanne Khamsi |
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