Believe it or not: Male mice hate bananas. Find out why

Male mice are scared of bananas, revealed a new study. The unusual discovery was made by researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Scientists came up with this finding when they were looking to analyse spike in stress hormones among male mice, who are near pregnant or lactating females. The hormonal shifts in these males seems to have been triggered by the presence of a compound called n-pentyl acetate in the urine of the females. This compound also gives bananas their distinctive smell, scientists said. The findings of the study were published in the journal ‘Science Advances’ on May 20.

"The whole thing came as a surprise, since we were not looking for this in particular and found it by accident. The pregnant females were in our lab for another experiment, and one of our grad students realised that the males began acting weird," Jeffrey Mogil, the senior author of the study and professor of department of psychology at McGill University, told Live Science.

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In the research paper, the scientists wrote that "male mice, especially virgin males, are well known to engage in infanticidal aggression to advance their genetic fitness." To keep the potential predators away, the pregnant and lactating females depend on chemosignaling, which means emitting chemical responses through bodies, to send messages to ensure the males do not come near their offspring.

On observing the rise in stress levels in males in response to the chemicals in urine of the females, the researchers wondered if n-pentyl acetate from a different source would also trigger same response. So, they got banana oil from a local supermarket and added it to the cotton balls and placed it in the cages of male mice. It raised the levels of stress in the males.

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(With inputs from agencies)

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