Mice use movie-like tricks to escape
To avoid fighting with fellow mice, mice come up with something ingenious. A research team observed this intricate tactic in an experiment with feeding stations set up for free-living animals. The researchers attribute this behavior as a spontaneous and creative reaction from the animals.
It's a popular move in action films: The pursued hero hides right at the entrance and escapes the onrushing attacker by slipping out behind his back. It's hard to believe, but mice use this trick as well, as reported in the journal "Open Science" of the British Royal Society.
With deliberate intention, mice tactically deceive - this has now been proven for the first time in mice with special experiments. Videos of the tests show how a mouse is chased into a chamber by another mouse. Cunningly, the mouse hides right at the entrance, is overlooked by the pursuing mouse, and escapes behind its back.
Dead-End Situation
The team led by Rafal Stryjek from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw had set up test chambers with a plastic pipe as the only entrance and exit near a forest. In this area, there live Wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) and Yellow-necked mice (Apodemus flavicollis) - species that vigorously defend their territory, as stated in the study. Correspondingly, there are frequent conflicts.
At the feeding stations, things were no different, according to the researchers. When a Wood mouse was attacked by a conspecific or another species, it sometimes resorted to the trick of placing itself right at the entrance upon entering the chamber, luring the pursuer to pass by, and escaping behind its back.
Sometimes the first mouse was already in the chamber and performed a similar maneuver: hearing another mouse approaching, hiding at the entrance, letting the newcomer pass by, and waiting for a favorable opportunity to escape from the chamber.
Repeated Deceptions
In total, 21 such deceptions by Wood mice were recorded in 143 observed encounters, it was written. The pursued mice thus avoided a fight in the otherwise inescapable chamber - in most deception cases, the pursuer was a larger, stronger Yellow-necked mouse. For Yellow-necked mice, deception maneuvers were reportedly rare based on study data.
The way the deception unfolded varied situationally and significantly from mouse to mouse. The Stryjek team concludes from these and other hints that this is likely not a completely inherited or learned behavior, but at least partially a spontaneous, creative reaction to a new challenge.
"Since Wood mice cannot beat Yellow-necked mice in strength, they apparently set their sights on tactics and deception to outmaneuver their opponents and avoid physical confrontation," the study states. However, turning this hypothesis into an unequivocal fact is challenging - intentions are often only to be inferred and difficult to reliably prove.
Intentionally deceiving another animal is a complex behavior that is based on highly developed cognitive abilities, explain researchers. So far, such tricks have been known mainly among primates and corvids. However, studies suggest that squirrels and rats also exhibit similar behaviors: Gray squirrels lay empty nut caches to deliberately mislead potential food thieves. And rats can play hide-and-seek and even switch roles - noticed by humans.
This behavioral research reveals that mice employ deception tactics to avoid conflicts, particularly with stronger Yellow-necked mice. The findings, published in the journal "Open Science", suggest that this strategic deception is not solely inherent or learned, but also a spontaneous, creative response to new challenges in their environment.
Furthermore, education about animal behavior can highlight the intellectual capabilities of these small creatures, highlighting how they employ complex strategies like deception, discussing the research on cunning behavior in primates, corvids, and even squirrels and rats.
