"Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs. And what's wrong with that? I'd like to know," Paul McCartney sings in his 1976 song "Silly Love Songs." Mice might agree.
It turns out male mice actually use ultrasonic "love songs" to woo females, using different tunes when they smell but do not see a female and when they lay eyes on their potential lady love, scientists said on Wednesday.
"I do think there is more going on with animal communication than we humans have been attuned to," Duke University neurobiology professor Erich Jarvis said. "There is a clear communication signal in the mouse songs and not just random sequences of vocalizations."
"Those songs are really high in pitch, above 50 kilohertz, and are not audible to humans. When we pitch them down and play back at real speed, it sounds like a bird," Duke postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Chabout added.
The researchers exposed male lab mice to different situations, recorded their songs, then analyzed them.
"I think the mice are saying with the complex songs, 'Pay attention to me, I'm here, come to me, and see how my complex song sounds great,' as a measure of his health. Then the females assess it, and he simplifies the song when she is directly next to him in order to spend energy to try to mate," Jarvis said.
"Whether or not it's a specific syllable type or something else in the complex song, we don't know," Chabout said.
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