The "singing" in this video may not be your idea of a pop masterpiece—indeed it may make you want to throw your speakers through the window—but
to female mice the sounds are as sweet as the deep crooning of Frank Sinatra. In a new study, researchers captured approximately 100 singing mice, also
known as Alston's Brown Mice (Scotinomys teguina) from Costa Rica, and implanted some of the males with extra male hormones while castrating the
others. The hormonally enhanced males sang more rapidly and with a wider range of frequencies than the castrati—and females noticed the difference.
When the researchers played the recordings for a female mouse through speakers on either end of her cage, she walked over to the speaker piping out the
tunes of the pumped-up male and sat down in front of it, like a groupie at a concert.
The female probably assumes that this male would make a better mate and father, the researchers report in the August issue of Animal Behavior, though you never know with pop stars.
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