Mitchell’s Hopping Mouse. © Wayne Lawler
Mice on the ground and mice up above – Australia’s, ground-dwelling Mitchell’s Hopping Mouse has been recorded for the first time climbing trees for food in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region.
In a new study published late last month, a team of scientists from Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) reported incidental captures of 43 hopping mice in tree-mounted traps at Mt Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary on Badimia country. The traps were deployed 1.5 metres off the ground, a height the species hadn’t previously been observed foraging in the wild.
“The traps were set out for monitoring Red-tailed Phascogales, and instead we caught an unusually high number of hopping mice,” said Dr Amanda Bourne, AWC Regional Ecologist and one of the five authors of the study. “This species is known for foraging on the ground and sheltering in underground burrows, so when we found the first individual in a tree-mounted trap, we passed it off as a solo climber that had accidentally ventured a little too high.”
“After we encountered the second individual, and then the third, we knew this wasn’t a fluke, we were recording evidence of a previously unknown behaviour.”
Ecologists believe the mice may have been motivated to climb to new heights in search for food, which was scarce following the Wheatbelt’s historic 2023-24 drought and heat waves.
Hopping mice are highly vulnerable to feral cats. Six of 11 known species have gone extinct since European colonisation, and two extant species are nationally threatened. At Mt Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary, Mitchell’s Hopping Mouse benefits from the safe environment provided by the sanctuary’s 7,800 hectare feral predator exclosure.
“The hungry hopping mice were likely drawn to the food lures we had placed inside the traps,” explained Dr Bourne. “Although accidental, we were given unique insight into the species’ range of foraging behaviours and provided evidence that they can, and do, climb trees to search for food.”
The team of ecologists are keen to explore the species’ climbing behaviour further, including whether the mice would be motivated to forage in trees in the absence of lured traps, or if the behaviour is a novel response to extreme weather and/or climate change.
The full report is available, here, and more information on AWC’s work at Mt Gibson Wildlife Sanctuary is available, here.
Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) is a global leader in conservation, providing hope to Australia’s wildlife with a science-informed, land management partnership model that delivers high impact results. AWC is a national leader in landscape scale conservation land management, reintroductions of threatened species and the establishment of feral predator-free areas.
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