Species category: Rodent

Scientific name: Mus musculus

Family: Muridae

Adults are typically 60-90mm. They have a tail-length of 80-100mm long and weigh 20g-30g maximum. Droppings can be useful for identification purposes; theirs are formed like grains of rice and are approx. 3-6mm long.The House mouse originated from East-Asia and has spread throughout the world in distributed grain and food.

Mice tend to live in grassy or bushy areas, making their nests in shallow burrows but can also be found above ground nesting in densely vegetated spaces. Outdoors they can be found in leaf piles or wood piles, even a stack of bricks can provide the right shelter.

When the weather turns colder they come indoors in search of warmth. They will live close to a source of food and destroy materials in the vicinity to build a nest.

Outdoors they will breed throughout the summer only and indoors they will breed continuously. Mice never move too far from their nest, and always use the same route when travelling to and from it, preferring to navigate around the edge of a room. Grease build-up in their fur, from urine and dust, creates smear marks which can be evident.

Mice are practically incontinent and urinate frequently. As a result, a mice infestation is normally recognized by distinct musty smell of their urine. They contaminate all surfaces that they scurry across with urine and faeces. They can produce up to 80 droppings a day.

Commercially, they cause direct food losses to field crops and stored food and food production chains, as well as indirect food losses, such as packaging destruction.