Bloodsucking mice are attacking the albatrosses of Midway Atoll

Now that is not a headline I thought I'd type when I got up this morning.

Nonetheless, science! So, here are the grisly details: Black-footed and Laysan albatrosses have thrived for decades on Midway Atoll in the north Pacific. Then in 2015, scientists began noticing birds with open, bloody wounds on their heads, necks and backs. What was going on? Were predatory owls or hawks attacking them?

Nope. Video footage uncovered the culprits – common house mice that were climbing onto the albatrosses and "eating them alive."

House mice aren't native to the island, but they'd been introduced 75 years ago and had coexisted without incident. The scientists eventually figured out what was going on: A drought on the island had made the mice desperately thirsty.

As the Washington Post reports:

"The mice were looking for sources of liquid, moisture, so actually drinking blood,” Keitt said.

He added that it is possible the attacks spread because mice learned from one another, discovering a new way to survive. Mice are omnivores, meaning they will eat any source of food they can find.

But how is it possible that large seabirds — standing almost three feet tall with a wingspan of more than six feet — are falling prey to a rodent?

Nesting albatrosses are particularly vulnerable to attacks because of an intense biological instinct to guard their young, Keitt said.

“The risk that they know is to their egg or chick that they’re sitting on,” he said. “They want to stay there and protect it. That’s their ecological evolutionary response. It’s not to run away.”

Having nested on the island for so long without facing threats from predators, the birds evolved without any fear or defense mechanisms, the Fish and Wildlife Service said in the statement.

The mice have also exploited a weakness in the albatrosses’ defense, attacking from behind where the bird’s powerful beak cannot reach them, Keitt said. He added that if a mouse were to walk up to the front of an albatross, it would not stand a chance.

(CC-licensed photo of a mouse that is totally cute and harmless -- OR IS IT?? -- via Barnaby Kerr Photography)

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