Scent mouse

In isolated male mice, own odor regulates the amount of urine deposited in marking. If it is present, they mark less, while clean surfaces and also other males urine trigger more frequent marking (Daumae and Kimura, 1986). In our laboratory experiments, students are impressed by how a mouse stops at a clean tile in the middle of a soiled open field. A scent-the-habitat function for odors from both sexes has been assumed for the gland secretions in the brushtail possum, Trichosurus vulpecula, since no sex differences in chemical composition were found (Woolhouse etal., 1994). 

Even adults can still develop olfactory preferences that contravene those acquired before sexual maturity. Female laboratory mice imprinted by the odor of one mouse strain will prefer this odor even more if they are exposed to males of this strain as adults. However, if they are exposed to males of a different strain when sexually mature, their original odor preference will be reversed (Albonetti and D Udine, 1986). Naturally occurring sex or body odors may assume their sexual significance after association with sexual activity male mice were aroused by a perfume that they had experienced earlier on scented females they had interacted with (Nyby etal., 1978). Practitioners have known that adult mammals can acquire responses after exposure to certain animals. For instance, bulls of the Asian elephant that had been housed near African elephant bulls respond to temporal gland secretion and its three components phenol, 4-methylphenol, and (E)-farnesol from the latter species. Asian bulls thathad not been associated with African bulls did not respond (Rasmussen, 1988). 

Specific chemical search image (Melcer and Chiszar, 1989). They learn a mouse s chemosensory signature, which is independent of envenomation, and follow its scent trail (Chiszar 1990). 

Early studies described the function of male mouse urinary odour cues as aggression-promoting or aversive to other males. However, the response to a scent depends on a wide range of different factors and scent marks are generally deposited as a broadcast signal that will be encountered by many different individuals (Hurst, 2004). Thus it is more appropriate to consider the information provided by male scents as signals that advertise specific aspects of a male s quality or competitive ability. 

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