By Susan Milius
Who knows whether opposites attract among mice? But similars do best when it comes to making a fast start on a family.
Among mound-building mice (Mus spicilegus), the more alike mates’ personalities were, the more likely they were to start having babies soon after being caged together in the lab, says Heiko Rödel of the University of Paris. Rödel and colleagues scored the animals’ similarities based on tests of anxiety, the researchers explain in the upcoming May issue of Animal Behaviour.