Male laboratory mice do not spontaneously care for their offspring, but they can exhibit some paternal behaviour in response to signals from their mates.
Haruhiro Higashida at Kanazawa University in Japan and his colleagues found that when female mice were separated from their young, they could encourage their male partners to adopt parental behaviour — such as carrying wandering pups back to the nest (pictured) — using high-pitched vocalizations and pheromones.
About 60% of the males tested retrieved pups after hearing a recording of 38-kilohertz distress calls of females removed from their pups. The team found similar results when males were placed in cages that had previously held females separated from their young. Paternal behaviour disappeared when the researchers simultaneously blocked hearing and olfaction in the males.
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Mothers call for parenting help. Nature 493, 275 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/493275a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/493275a
