Voles - Rodents with an Alcohol Problem

Have you heard of voles? Yes? No?

If you’ve heard of them you probably know them as mammals that bond for life. But only the prairie voles! The others are as slutty as 97% of mammals or, in case of female hamsters, sometimes eat their mates. And babies. Seriously, I’m glad hamsters aren’t bigger …

Anyway, prairie voles are special. In a study, they determined that male voles that haven’t mated yet can’t differentiate between females. But after having sex for the first time, they’re not only bonded to their mate but can also recognize different females!

Maybe that’s similar to the “all women are the same!” complaint single men often have. Who knows, voles are often used to draw conclusions about human behavior.

And oh, how human they seem sometimes! Prairie voles love alcohol. They love it so much that they prefer a 10% alcohol solution over pure water. That’s incredibly useful for research purposes. Usually, test animals don’t like alcohol and it’s really hard to get them to drink the bitter fluid. In the mouse lab I worked for a while, they initially offered just an alcohol solution and no water, so the animals had no other choice. As a result, the animals died. They were offered water after that too. _@suesa

But voles, voles love alcohol. They can easily drink the equivalent of 15 bottles of wine in a day. That makes experiments involving alcohol very, very easy.

Take a huge amount of voles (over 100 for the study I linked below), let them find a partner they love and cherish and then split them into two groups.

Group one gets water.

Group one gets alcohol.

Group two is split in male and female, the male can have a drink.

The males of each group were offered two choices after drinking either water or alcohol: Go cuddle with their sweetheart or have some fun with a different female.

Interestingly, the males that had been drinking alone tended to choose an unknown female over the one they bonded with.

In conclusion, alcohol leads to serious problems and even cheating in vole couples.

Do with that information whatever you like.

Maybe make sure your significant other doesn’t drink alone … especially if they’re a rodent.

But why would you be dating a rodent in the first place?

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Sources:

Drinking Alone Leads to Divorce—In Rodents

Two Prairie Voles Walk Into a Bar... Then Scientists Study Alcohol's Effects on Couples Bonding

When Single Male Rodents Settle Down, They're Changed Forever

What Can Rodents Tell Us About Why Humans Love?

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Pictures taken from pixabay.com

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Today’s Suesa’s favorite is: @irime

A scientific mind paired with a love for Jiu Jitsu, that’s what you can expect from this wonderful woman. Her insightful posts about lab animals and research manipulation guarantee a fun and informative experience.

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