William Atkins
Friday, 19 September 2008 20:43
Science -
Biology
Page 2 of 3
The House Mouse (
Mus Musculus) is one of the most numerous species of mouse, living commonly in close proximity to humans.
The West European House Mouse (
Mus musculus domesticus) is a subspecies.
Cucchi states within his abstract,
“Human translocation by stowaway transport is the widely accepted vector of the current worldwide distribution of commensal rodents but its historical process has never been directly evidenced.”
However, Dr. Cucchi found direct evidence, the first of its kind concerning mice as they stowed away on ships, which eventually helped them to spread around the world.
He states,
“These results provide the earliest direct evidence for stowaway transports highlighting the historical process of the house mouse invasion of the Mediterranean.”
Cucchi continues,
“The anecdotal find of the small murine (mice and rats) mandible among the wealthy cargo of the Uluburun shipwreck provide us with an unexpected opportunity to directly evidence the species associated with this stowaway and provide indirect clues regarding the ship's route.”
The conclusion of his study finds that the mandible found within the ship’s wreckage is from the house mouse, species
Mus musculus domesticus.
How did the remains of the mouse determine its origin? Please read page three.
