White Footed Mouse Drumming

A distinctive behavior of white-footed mice is drumming with their front paws. This produces a buzzing. White-footed mice have keen eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Animal behavior
• Drumming Whitefooted
• white
• footed
• mouse
• rodents
• communication
• animal communication
• drumming

[LycaWatyre]

I believe it is a form of communication. We have them at our house right now (sorry guys, but you're moving out! I have no-kill traps, so there!) and they seem to drum back and forth.

[dllahr]

Yeah why do they do this?

[crmather1]

I am raising some baby white-footed mice and they're almost ready for release now. They've been doing this drumming more often as they get older. When I played your video near their enclosure, they drummed immediately, as if in response. Very cool. Thanks for posting the video.

[wakkanne]

How about that? I was watching one of my white-footed mice and heard that sound. I tried to figure out how she was making it. I kept watching the tail, but it wasn't the culprit. House mice rattle their tails when they feel threatened and I think white-footed mice do too, but this time she must have been drumming! :D

[Shmecklecka]

"A distinctive behavior of white-footed mice is drumming on a hollow reed or a dry leaf with their front paws. This produces a long musical buzzing. It is unclear why white-footed mice do this."

~Animal Diversity Web~

[Shmecklecka]

This is great! I always heard that noise when the cuties scurry about at night, now I know what it is! Thy drum! For a while I fantacized it was how the squeezed themselves through small cracks, sort of wriggling, but they're really tap-dancing...