Markham Wildlife Control: Can Mice Show Emotion?

If you’re searching for information on your resident mouse’s feelings because you feel bad about setting traps, you’re not alone in wondering whether these tiny animals seem to be showing emotions on their faces. After all, you can definitely read your dog’s different moods. Mice, it turns out, are quite opinionated about their lives and they do show their emotions quite readily, according to neurobiologists. Read through the following points to determine whether the mouse you see is happy, afraid, or disgusted — and learn how to get it out of your house with professional, humane mice removal.

Mice Show Emotion on Their Faces

Researchers in Germany have concluded that mice show emotion on their faces. This team ran an experiment that correlates a mouse’s facial expressions with their brain activity. Before you get too excited about the possibility of communicating with your house mice, understand that while mice do show emotion with several different facial expressions in the way that humans might, you won’t see a mouse smiling, frowning, or even showing anger in a way that you will readily recognize.

How Do Mice Show Emotion?

Mice, like humans, show changes in their eyes, mouth, and facial muscles in response to stimuli. They may twitch their whiskers, wiggle their ears, close or narrow their eyes, or move their noses when their feelings change. Like people, mice are adept at inspecting the world around them. Unlike humans, mice rely more on their senses to look out for danger, food, and safe places to rest.

How Many Emotions Do Mice Show?

Though mice may feel a wide range of emotions, they show specific ones on their faces in predictable ways. In the experiment above, the researchers found evidence of the following emotions on their subjects’ faces:

• Happiness
• Disgust
• Nausea
• Fear
• Pain

The researchers noted that when they gave the mice sugar water (which tastes sweet and typically makes mice happy), the mice’s ears moved forward toward their bodies. Their noses moved down slightly toward their mouths. When the same mice tasted a bitter flavour, their ears peeled back and their noses curled back as well. Most of the experiment was processed by a computer, which means that to the untrained human eye, mouse emotions would be very hard to detect. You can try to decode a mouse’s feelings, of course, if you want to — but it’s better to try in the wild, or with a pet, rather than with mice living in the walls of your home.

What Do I Do if I See Mice in My Home?

Now that you know that mice feel and show a wide range of emotions including fear and pain, this information may deter you from setting traps that harm or kill mice. Before you get too comfortable with your little roommates, remember that they are still wild creatures and that they won’t hesitate to bite and scratch you if they feel cornered. Don’t touch them. If you only see one mouse, it’s very possible that there are more. Simply call your closest local humane wildlife control team for help relocating the mouse and its family.

Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control in Markham

Noticing one mouse running out of your garage at nighttime, especially if you live in a rural area, is not a cause for concern; however, if you find mouse droppings, hear scratching in the walls, or see these small creatures scurrying around your home, it’s time to act. While most mice do not cause or spread disease, they can cause a large amount of damage to your home including accidentally starting electrical fires by chewing through wires. Let us help you with your rodent control in a humane, ethical way. Contact Skedaddle Wildlife to solve your mouse problem today!