The story is about a promiscuous daddy brush mouse who mates with many mommy mice. He sees a beautiful monogamous California mommy mouse and uses pheromones to make her fall in love with him. They mate and have monogamous baby mice. However, neither parent knows how to properly raise the babies due to their different mating instincts, causing fights. The mommy mouse takes control and teaches the babies monogamous values so they can have their own love stories.

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Ann Marie González Piñeiro
April 20, 2015
RISE Creative Writting Competition
A Mouse Love Story
Hello, my name is Jesyka Meléndez. I’m a graduate student at UC Berkeley and
today I’m going to tell you the love story about the mice that I work with in my behavioral
ecology research.
Once upon a time there was a daddy mouse who went all over the forest mating with
every mommy mice and leaving baby mice wherever he went. This particular daddy mouse
was known as the promiscuous brush mouse. It was his nature to mate with different
mommy mice and have several litters. Eventually, his litters would grow up to be just as
promiscuous as he. One day, daddy mouse went to a secluded part in the forest and saw a
smaller and cuter mommy mouse. He was astonished and asked himself who was this
beauty he had just seen. This beautiful little mouse was a monogamous California mouse.
She was raised in a family where her mommy mouse and her daddy mouse mated for life. In
this particular family, the daddy mouse takes care of the baby mice and teaches them to
find a life mate.
After spending time looking at the beautiful mommy mouse, the daddy mouse
decided he needed to mate with her. He felt attracted to her because of the major
histocompatibility complex, which was different to his and would result in diverse
offspring. That’s when he started the marvelous plan to make her fall in love with him. It

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was a difficult task because she wanted to mate for life, but he only wanted to spread his
genes one more time. He began this conquest by releasing his powerful pheromones all
over the place. His secret weapon is a chemical that triggers a social response in members
of the same species. Because of this reason, the pheromones that were secreted got to the
mommy mouse and altered her response towards him. She fell madly in love with this
daddy mouse and could not resist him.
The little monogamous mommy mouse and the promiscuous daddy mouse mated and
gave life to little monogamous baby mice. These baby mice ended up being like their
mommy, monogamous, because if they were to be promiscuous they would have to compete
with their daddy mouse in the mating process and that would not end well. After the birth of
these babies, there was a very big problem. Neither mommy mouse nor daddy mouse knew
how to raise these mice. They would fight every day because of the responsibilities and the
tendencies of their nature. Daddy mouse was known for fleeing the scene right after the
litter was born and mommy mouse had grown up watching her dad take care of the baby
mice.
As a result to all this controversy, the mommy mouse decided to take control of the
situation. She did this by teaching her monogamous babies everything her parents had
taught her. Because of this, the babies grew up raised with monogamous values and set off
to create their own love story.
THE END.

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The story I just told you guys represents the mating process between the
monogamous California mouse and the promiscuous brush mouse and the conflicts that
they could endure. I hope that with this short love story you could understand the mating
structures in these mice and the role of the major histocompatibility complex.