mouse mouse mouse SHREW

January 1, 2018 4:00 PM

Matthias Wandel [previously] has mice in his workshop. He was curious how small a hole a mouse could squeeze through, so he set up an experiment - and added excellent sound effects. Don't miss the second video at the bottom of the page!

Earlier: Matthias made a maze to challenge his mice.

Direct youtube links:
🐭 Mouse maze experiments
🐭 How small a hole can a mouse get through?
🐭 The shrew managed to squeeze itself through!

posted by moonmilk (26 comments total)

Interesting that ::::::SPOILER ALERT:::::: where the mouse ate the PB it pooped, as if to say, nothing left here that I want.

Maybe this is common in mouse behavior, idk.
posted by datawrangler at 4:08 PM on January 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

Back when my household had pet rodents of various kinds, we had gotten a pair of baby mice, one of whom decided to demonstrate that the cage that we had with 3/8ths inch spaced bars would not be appropriate by walking up to them and squeezing right through T-1000 style while we watched.
posted by radwolf76 at 4:10 PM on January 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

Vaguely relevant video
posted by moonmilk at 4:21 PM on January 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

Cue ominous shrew music.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 4:43 PM on January 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

Will you settle for ominous mole music?
posted by moonmilk at 4:58 PM on January 1, 2018

It never occurs to the mouse to just go over!
posted by sjswitzer at 5:01 PM on January 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

There is a clear plastic cover--no going over.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:16 PM on January 1, 2018

There's a clear sheet (acrylic or glass?) over top of the whole apparatus, to prevent the mouse from going over, I think.
posted by Alterscape at 5:17 PM on January 1, 2018

Great stuff, and seriously, don't miss the second video!
posted by languagehat at 5:22 PM on January 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

Make it like a crab trap with a slightly tapered hole towards the inside. The mouse can squeeze in but can't get enough purchase to get started to get back out.
posted by JackFlash at 5:47 PM on January 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

It is impossible to overstate how important silly sound effects are to the success of these videos.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:53 PM on January 1, 2018 [15 favorites]

Cue ominous shrew music.

Incidentally, "Ominous Shrew" is the name of my new band. We mostly play Danger Mouse covers.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:00 PM on January 1, 2018 [18 favorites]

Best part is at the end of the video when the maintenance guy shows up and is like, "This is the mail drop... and THIS is the incinerator!"
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:45 PM on January 1, 2018

Make it like a crab trap with a slightly tapered hole towards the inside. The mouse can squeeze in but can't get enough purchase to get started to get back out.

Evil!
posted by Splunge at 7:19 PM on January 1, 2018

Mice poop and pee to mark territory, along with just generally doing it. The mouse was probably quite pleased with its remarkable discovery of regenerating peanut butter rooms and was doing the equivalent of placing a waypoint in GTA or PUBG.
posted by Scattercat at 7:41 PM on January 1, 2018 [4 favorites]

Recently a (juvenile?) mouse surprised my mother at her desk, and then escaped by squeezing through the phone jack into the wall. She has been traumatized about it ever since. I won't be sharing this video with her, but I enjoyed it!
posted by agentofselection at 8:53 PM on January 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

A professional exterminator once explained to my friend that mice can squeeze through very small gaps because they have no bones.
posted by moonmilk at 9:19 PM on January 1, 2018 [11 favorites]

We had a mouse infestation this past fall, which went on for far too long partly because I didn't take it as seriously as my partner wanted me to until we began discovering mouse shit everywhere and any food not stored within hard plastic or metal containers having been scratched at or gnawed on, proving there were a lot of mice and they had the run of the house and had effectively become furry flea-bearing oversized roaches.

So the passive-toleration phase now over, out came the glue traps and the poison and we had an exterminator visit, and he scattered more glue and poison traps in the garage and crawlspace, sealed all the cracks and holes in the baseboards and wall, and taught us to properly and fully seal the crawlspace. He said they were all entering the house through the crawlspace rather than the garage, and that house mice usually run outside during the day to get their water supply, so as long as the crawlspace is sealed they can't get in, and any mice that are sealed inside the crawlspace should be prevented from entering the house so that they get hungry enough to eat the poison they've got.

He said that despite their puffy little waddly shapes a mouse can squeeze itself through any hole the size of its skull, and mice skulls are very small, so our fairly large house needs to have, if any, only very, very small holes. And that proved true and we haven't had a mouse problem for a while now, aside from occasionally discovering yet another scattering of mouse shit somewhere we hadn't thought to clean previously, because seriously those little fuckers get into places you would not expect them to.
posted by ardgedee at 4:10 AM on January 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

MetaFilter: seriously those little fuckers get into places you would not expect them to
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:44 AM on January 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

MetaFilter: seriously those little fuckers get into places you would not expect them to
posted by GenjiandProust

Last week I found mouse poop in my Instant Pot.

GAME ON, LITTLE FUCKERS
posted by workerant at 7:19 AM on January 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

For eight years I lived in a garden apartment built mostly of wood in the early 60s.

This is too real, is what I'm saying. Also, I'm still traumatized.
posted by seyirci at 7:21 AM on January 2, 2018

What these folks need is a Big Fucking Snake. I had an 82" rat snake keeping watch under one of the dilapidated heaps I lived in. No mice or rats. Ever. Watching a mouse scurry thru a tiny hole has nothing on a reptile, one longer than I am tall, following behind, hot on its tail.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 7:40 AM on January 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

1m2m1bfs0m
posted by moonmilk at 10:56 AM on January 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

> 1f2frfbf:
"What these folks need is a Big Fucking Snake. I had an 82" rat snake keeping watch under one of the dilapidated heaps I lived in. No mice or rats. Ever. Watching a mouse scurry thru a tiny hole has nothing on a reptile, one longer than I am tall, following behind, hot on its tail."

You know, a snake's mouth is a small hole.
posted by Samizdata at 11:07 AM on January 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Both mice and snakes are just tubes
posted by Cogito at 1:23 PM on January 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

A similar experiment, but with a squirrel and peanuts
posted by moonmilk at 8:49 AM on January 6, 2018