News release

From: The Royal Society

Catch me if you can: free-living mice show a highly flexible dodging behaviour suggestive of intentional tactical deception

Intentional tactical deception, the employment of a tactic to intentionally deceive another animal, is a complex behaviour based on higher-order cognition, that has rarely been documented outside of primates and corvids. Using laboratory-style test chambers placed near a forest outside Warsaw, we found that free-living black-striped mice show deceptive dodging: an individual inside the chamber, to avoid an incoming hostile mouse, hid by the chamber entrance, paused until the pursuer entered and passed by, and then exploited the distraction of the back-turned pursuer by fleeing through the opening. As the first evidence of a behavior suggestive of tactical deception among mice, this discovery may be relevant for non-human intentionality and theory of mind.

Hide and squeak – Science has confirmed what any animated Tom cat knows all too well: mice are masters of deception. Black-striped mice were recorded being chased into a closed chamber by another mouse. Pursued mice hid by the chamber entrance until the chaser entered, and then fled back through the entrance while their back was turned. This behaviour was recorded 21 times and is the first evidence of intentional tactical deception in mice.