Some mice don't just squeak, they "sing". Scientists have discovered how

It's not about singing in the human sense. It's a way for mice to communicate, but the mechanism has proven unusual for mammals.

Details

The Alston's singing mouse, or Scotinomys teguina, is a small rodent that lives in the mountain forests of Mexico and Central America. These mice are known for producing more complex sequences of sounds rather than short squeaks.

The researchers wanted to understand exactly how the animals make these sounds. To do this, they studied the structure of the larynx of mice, using high-speed cameras, microphones and three-dimensional reconstructions.

It turned out that the sound is not only due to the usual work of the vocal apparatus. The flow of air passes through the larynx and inflates a special structure - an air sac, which scientists call ventral pouch. It is its work that helps to create the whistling sound.

In addition, a muscle that helps control the pitch of the sound plays an important role. When the ventral pouch could not inflate normally or when the work of this muscle was disrupted, the mice lost some of their usual range of sounds.

Simply put, these mice have a kind of "inbuilt whistle" in their throats. It's not literally a whistle, but it works on a similar principle: air passes through a structure in the larynx and creates a high-pitched sound.

Why it matters

The study helps us better understand how animals develop complex ways of communicating. In most mammals, sounds are produced by vibration of the vocal cords, but singing mice use a more unusual mechanism.

The discovery also shows that even small and well-known animals can have understudied features. Mice seem simple, but their sound communication may be much more complex than a common squeak.

For biologists, such studies are also important because they help to compare the different ways animals make sounds, from rodents to birds to humans.

Background

Singing mice have long interested scientists because their sounds are different from the normal signals of many rodents. They can be long, high-pitched and quite complex in structure.

It was previously known that these mice have an enlarged air sac in the laryngeal region, but its role remained unclear. The new work has shown that it is not just present in the anatomy, but is actually involved in the creation of sound.

That said, scientists are still studying exactly how mice control their "songs" and what role these signals play in their behaviour.

Source

The study by Samantha Khouri Smith and co-authors Mechanisms and control of a novel vocalisation: the singing mouse song is a whistle that depends on air sac inflation published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences in 2026. The authors studied how Alston's singing mice produce their whistling sounds and showed that air sac inflation in the larynx plays a key role.