{"id":1913,"date":"2026-07-08T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/2026\/07\/08\/heres-how-singing-mice-belt-out-their-tiny-tunes\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T10:30:00","slug":"heres-how-singing-mice-belt-out-their-tiny-tunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/2026\/07\/08\/heres-how-singing-mice-belt-out-their-tiny-tunes\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s how \u2018singing\u2019 mice belt out their tiny tunes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disney\u2019s Cinderella<\/em> is not the only place you can hear mice \u201csing.\u201d Some real-world rodents also serenade each other. And now, scientists know how. The mice inflate tiny, balloon-like sacs<\/a> in their airways. This creates whistling tunes.<\/p>\n

Making music this way may be unique in the animal kingdom.<\/p>\n

The critters are known as Alston\u2019s singing mice. Found in the forests of Mexico and Central America, they truly live up to their name. Both males and females communicate with trains of high-pitched notes. Remarkably, their songs are more complex than those of any other rodent.<\/p>\n

In just a 10-second song, an Alston\u2019s singing mouse belts out around 100 individual breaths and notes. The melody attracts mates and warns rival males to stay away, says Samantha Smith. The song\u2019s speed and length make it far more \u201cextreme\u201d than other rodents\u2019 calls, she adds. Smith is a biologist at the University of Lausanne. That\u2019s in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Smith is part of a team that wanted to know how the vocal systems of Alston\u2019s singing mice evolved to create melodies.\u00a0They started by dissecting the larynges of deceased animals. This \u201cvoice box\u201d is a part of their bodies that helps mice (and us) breathe, swallow and make sound.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/div>
Watch one Alston\u2019s singing mouse serenade the sky with its complex song.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The researchers hooked each excised mouse voice box to a tube. Then, they pointed a microphone and camera toward its top. \u201cA [voice box] is basically just a tube with a valve in it that can open and close,\u201d explains Smith. To see how the voice box moved and produced sound, the team blew air through the tube.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the voice box produced sounds that ranged in the mouse\u2019s natural pitch. But this happened only when a pouch on the inside of the voice box was inflated. When the researchers blocked this balloon with bits of wax or small metal balls, the voice box went silent. Cutting the sac had the same effect. The air sac, it seemed, is key to making the songs.<\/p>\n

Other rodents have air sacs, but they don’t appear to use them to sing.<\/p>\n

Smith and her teammates shared their findings May 6 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A unique musical talent<\/h2>\n

Raffaela Lesch is impressed by the team\u2019s experiment and its choice of species. She works at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. As a bioacoustician, she studies how animals use sound to communicate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with [voice boxes] this small is not an easy task,\u201d she says. But for Lesch, learning more about how rodents produce sound is exciting. They\u2019re \u201csuch a diverse group with such fascinating social, behavioral and ecological adaptions,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not yet clear how the sac generates its whistle. The sound could come from air vibrating at the sac’s entrance. That would be similar to the way opening a car\u2019s sunroof can make noise as air rushes past the opening.<\/p>\n

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Do you have a science question? We can help!<\/h2>\n

Submit your question here<\/a>, and we might answer it an upcoming issue of Science News Explores<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Another possibility is a bit like how flutes and organ pipes work. A sharp cartilage rim at the sac’s entrance may be deflecting air, producing the tone.<\/p>\n

Inflatable sacs in airways have evolved multiple times. Primates, birds, reptiles, frogs and other animals have them. But in those cases<\/a>, air sacs alter or amplify sound produced elsewhere in the respiratory tract. (That’s the system of organs that are involved in breathing.) The songs of the singing mice, on the other hand, are made by the sacs themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study expands our understanding of the ways in which [air sacs] can shape vocal communication,\u201d Smith says. Studying different features of rodent air sacs may help reveal how these songs first evolved \u2014 no Disney magic needed.<\/p>\n

Source: Science News Explores<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disney\u2019s Cinderella is not the only place you can hear mice \u201csing.\u201d Some real-world rodents also serenade each other. And now, scientists know how. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[321],"class_list":["post-1913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-science-news-explores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}