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Contact: Lee Siegel
leesiegel@ucomm.utah.edu
801-581-8993
University of Utah
Caption: A deer mouse makes its getaway after University of Utah biologists coated it with fluorescent green powder. After releasing pink, green, blue, orange and yellow mice at 12 desert sites before sunset, the researchers would trap dozens of mice the next morning, then examine them under ultraviolet or "black" light to reveal which mice has been bitten or scratched by or mated with the five mice at each site that had been completely dusted with colored powder. The study showed that bigger, older mice are those most likely to infect other deer mice with deadly hantavirus, which mice can transmit to humans.
Credit: Denise Dearing, Unversity of Utah.
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Related news release: Big, old mice spread hantavirus
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