Real-Life Viking Version Of An American Tail?
Mus musculus, the common mouse, can happily live wherever there are humans. When populations of humans migrate the mice often travel with them and apparently that has long been the case. New research used evolutionary techniques on modern day and ancestral mouse mitochondrial DNA to show that the timeline of mouse colonization even matches that of the Viking invasions.During the Viking age (late 8th to mid 10th century) Vikings from Norway established colonies across Scotland, the Scottish islands, Ireland, and Isle of Man. They also explored the north Atlantic, settling in the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Newfoundland and Greenland. They intentionally brought horses, sheep, goats and chickens but also unknowingly carried pest species, including mice. read more