#头条创作挑战赛 #
Mice are one of the commonly used experimental subjects because mice are small and have strong reproductive ability.
In the sixties of the last century, John Bompas Calhoun, a famous American ethologist, did such an experiment with mice.
He rented a warehouse on a farm and built a box 2.5 meters long and 1.5 meters high. He divided the box into 16 fan-shaped areas, each with a water dispenser and food dispenser.
Rats nests were also built on the walls, with a total of 256 rat dens in this area, each of which can hold 15 rats and allow them to live comfortably inside.
Theoretically, this area can live with fewer than 4,000 mice. All water dispensers can drink water for 6,000 mice. The food dispenser can feed 9,000 mice. This area is comfortable for no more than 4,000 mice.
He called the experiment Universe 25, and the purpose of the experiment was to simulate the fate of humans through mice.
The experiment begins
At the beginning, Carl chose 4 male mice and 4 female mice to experiment. After these eight mice entered, because they had no natural enemies and had a lot of food and water, they could be said to have a very happy life.
Breeding in large numbers, dividing the territory
Three months after the experiment, the first litter of mice was born. After the mice were born, because there was a lot of food, the rat population began to grow rapidly, doubling every two months for the first year.
They soon discovered an interesting phenomenon, because the mice have a sense of territory, and the number of mice born in the 16 fan-shaped areas they divided is very different, they counted that within 250 days, more areas gave birth to 111 mice, less only 13 were born, and the internal differentiation of mice produced large families and small families.
Towards balance? Towards destruction!
After 10 months of experimentation, the number of mice reached 662, and from this time the number of mice began to slow down, and at this time the behavior of mice also began to change, usually mice are foraging alone, since the growth of the number began to slow down after the mice began to forage collectively, no longer acting alone must be together, and even some mice began to be afraid to act alone. Calhoun thinks this is because the mice develop a social craving.
After that, the number of rats reached 2200 for another eight months, and since then the number of mice has begun to decline, obviously the space food and water are sufficient, but the mice are no longer giving birth, and even the psychology of the mice has a very serious problem, I divided these mice into four types.
1: The largest number of male rats of small families, these male mice began to gather in large numbers in the center of the experimental site, and usually they will not go to this place, because this place is the dividing point of each territory and there is no food, they start to lie down and comb their hair and then start to sleep when they get to that place, wake up and go to other places to eat something and then continue to come back to comb and sleep, they also show that they are not interested in other individuals, just in a daze, and their daze is very terrifying, As soon as other mice touch it, it begins to frantically attack the mice that disturb it, and the mice attacked by it will not resist, just lie there and let it bite.
Because these mice keep grooming and sleeping without doing anything, they are so beautiful that Calhoun calls these mice "beautiful people."
2: The female mice in the small family, each of them lies in the nest and does not go anywhere, but also combs and sleeps and eats there, but they completely lose their fertility, and they will not attack you if you disturb them, they are very narcissistic, not interested in the opposite sex at all, or even far from the opposite sex.
3: The male mice of the big family, these male mice were originally the guardians of the territory, but they also completely lost interest in life and had no sense of territory, and became like ordinary male mice to find a place to lie there.
4: The female mice of the large family, they become the guardians of the territory because the male mice protecting the territory no longer protect the territory, and begin to attack those mice who come to their territory and their aggression will become more and more serious, and even attack their own children, although they still have fertility, but they will not give birth to the little mice but digest them themselves, even if they are born, they will not care about it, these little mice will be eaten by other mice.
What is even more frightening is the emergence of some non-gender-conscious mice, who will frantically courtship around them during estrus, regardless of men, women and children, and once they are rejected, they will begin to violently attack the rats that reject them.
In less than two and a half years of the experiment, no mice were born, and at 1780 days into the experiment, with the death of the last male mouse, the experiment ended, and the 25th universe was destroyed.
Summary of experiments, social responses
Calhoun believes that the reason for the destruction of these rats is that "behavioral sinking" occurs, which means that when a species develops to a certain density within a limited range, irreversible sinking occurs, which does not refer to population density but social density, and sinking occurs when people cannot control their social and private space.
When the results of this experiment were released, the whole society was shocked, and there were many opponents, most of them theologians.
They believe that people cannot be compared with mice, because humans are higher creatures and will not sink and die like rats. And most of the people who agreed with this view were the people living in the United States at that time, because they felt that this thing was happening, and at that time, it was the development period of the United States that many people gathered in the city to find work, and people's social space and living space were constantly decreasing, and they sank over time.
The same is true now, there is a "lying flat" who has lost hope in life, no dreams, and the loss of interest in the opposite sex has greatly increased.
However, I don't think people will perish like rats because of "behavior sinking", because the mice in universe 25 live in a limited space after all, and we humans are different, and there is a whole universe waiting for us to explore and discover. Human desires are endless, and it is because of these desires and dreams that we humans have developed to this day!