Photographing mice: the adorableness is overwhelming!

A gray male pet mouse stands on all four paws and looks just past the camera, seemingly ready for anything.  He's in an exploration mode, looking around the area with ears perked up and whiskers at the ready. (Marc C. Perkins)
A gray male pet mouse stands on all four paws and looks just past the camera, seemingly ready for anything.

Recently I got the opportunity to photograph a few fancy mice, and I just have to share the cuteness here on the blog. I had rats or mice as pets for more than a decade before getting my current cats, and I dearly loved them; in fact, I’d still have rodent pets if it weren’t for their horribly short lifespans 1.

Editor’s note: I’ll try to add commentary throughout these pictures, but I should probably just say “SQUEEE!” after each picture, because that’s what I’m really doing inside when I see these.

A gray male mouse with black eyes peers over the top of a clear plastic cage.  He's just poking his nose over, and looks like he's hesitantly wondering what, or who, is out there. (Marc C. Perkins)
A gray male mouse with black eyes peers over the top of a clear plastic cage. He's just poking his nose over, and looks like he's hesitantly wondering what, or who, is out there.

Mice are incredibly fun to watch, especially in large groups. They’re always exploring the boundaries of their cages:

A gray male pet mouse jumps up on the side of a clear plastic cage and holds himself up by his front paws, peering over the edge into the vast unknown beyond the cage.  I love the cute little paws holding onto the edge.  I also like how the whiskers are fully three-dimensional: you can see how they extend around the face in all directions - front, back, top, bottom, and sides. (Marc C. Perkins)
A gray male pet mouse jumps up on the side of a clear plastic cage and holds himself up by his front paws, peering over the edge into the vast unknown beyond the cage. I like how the whiskers are fully three-dimensional: you can see how they extend around the face in all directions - front, back, top, bottom, and sides.

or poking their noses out of tubes:

A white and black patched male mouse sniffs at what's outside his green tube.  The focus is dead on his adorable pink nose! (Marc C. Perkins)
A white and black patchy male mouse sniffs at what's outside his green tube. The focus is right on his adorable pink nose!

or grooming themselves:

A gray male mouse curls up in a depression in the bedding and scratches his jaw/chin.  It's incredible how fast their hind paws move when they're scratching. (Marc C. Perkins)
A gray male mouse curls up in a depression in the bedding and scratches his jaw/chin. It's incredible how fast their hind paws move when they're scratching.

or burrowing in the bedding:

An orange female mouse buries herself in the bedding, poking out just an eye and a nose to scout the surroundings. (Marc C. Perkins)
An orange female mouse buries herself in the bedding, poking out just an eye and a nose to scout the surroundings.

and then poking their heads out of bedding (which in these pictures is Carefresh, made from recycled wood pulp):

A tan female mouse pops her head out of the bedding ("Oh hai!"), in a behavior anyone who's had pet mice will recognize.  The mouse has just finished burrowing herself under the bedding and crawling underneath it a short ways, before popping her head up to scout her new surroundings. (Marc C. Perkins)
"Oh hai!"- A tan female mouse has just finished burrowing herself under the bedding and crawling underneath it a short ways, before popping her head up to scout her new surroundings.

Rats and mice are one of a small subset of vertebrates who eat by bringing their food to their mouth (like humans), rather than bringing their mouth to their food.  I was exceptionally happy to capture a few closeups of mouse paws, highlighting just how human-like they are:

A closeup of a gray male mouse's front paws, in a pose that makes them look especially like human hands.  The claws and fine hairs on the back of the fingers (toes) are easily visible.  It's almost like the mouse is curling his hands up and laughing ("heh heh heh, I'll get you!"). (Marc C. Perkins)
A closeup of a gray male mouse's front paws, in a pose that makes them look especially like human hands. The claws and fine hairs on the back of the fingers (toes) are easily visible. It's almost like the mouse is curling his hands up and laughing ("heh heh heh, I'll get you!").

And here’s another one, where the mouse looks like he’s tapping his fingers together and chuckling (think: Brain plotting to take over the world):

A closeup of a gray male mouse's front paws, in a pose that makes them look especially like human hands.  The claws and fine hairs on the back of the fingers (toes) are easily visible.  It's almost like the mouse is tapping his fingers together going "heh heh heh, I'll get you!" (Marc C. Perkins)
A closeup of a gray male mouse's front paws, in a pose that makes them look especially like human hands. The claws and fine hairs on the back of the fingers (toes) are easily visible.

And, continuing in the extreme-closeup vein, here’s a tightly cropped view of a mouse face (full image is here), showing clearly that mice actually have eyelashes:

A closely-cropped version of my "Mouse face" image, focusing on the eye and nose region.  In this image you can clearly see the mouse's eyelashes (both above and below her eye), as well as the whisker attachment points.  Interestingly, some of her whiskers are clearly two strands of hair held closely together. (Marc C. Perkins)
A closely-cropped version of my "Mouse face" image, focusing on the eye and nose region. In this image you can clearly see the mouse's eyelashes (both above and below her eye), as well as the whisker attachment points. Interestingly, some of her whiskers are clearly two strands of hair held closely together.

But that’s enough closeups; let’s wrap up with a couple of my favorite shots.  This mouse is perfectly demonstrating the hesitant-exploration strategy of mice:

A gray male mouse checks what is beyond the safety of his plastic tube (visible in the background) . His hind legs are still in the tube, and he's stretching out his body to explore as far as he can. (Marc C. Perkins)
A gray male mouse checks what is beyond the safety of his plastic tube (visible in the background) . His hind legs are still in the tube, and he's stretching out his body to explore as far as he can.

And I absolutely have to close with a wink:

A gray male mouse winks at the camera, closing his left eye. (Marc C. Perkins)
A gray male mouse winks at the camera, closing his left eye.

 

1 Rats and mice have individual personalities. Rats especially grow very attached to specific humans, and love to interact with us. But they live only a couple of years, and losing them was always devastating. Imagine losing your dog or cat after only two, or at most three, years; it’s horrible.

More pictures

To see more pictures from the mouse shoot, head to my “Mice! So cute!” Gallery or click on the thumbnails below.

A gray male mouse rests a paw against the side of the cage and sniffs up to explore the edge of the cage. (Marc C. Perkins) A gray male mouse gets up close and personal with the camera lens, looking right at the edge of the lens.  This closeup focuses on the nose and whiskers of the mouse. (Marc C. Perkins) A gray male mouse pulls himself up over the edge of the plastic cage to peer off into the distance. (Marc C. Perkins) A black female mouse collapses on the bedding in a pose that reminds me of someone saying, "is it Monday â�¦ again?" (Marc C. Perkins)  A female agouti mouse hunches up as she chews on a sunflower seed, in a pose most mouse owners should recognize. (Marc C. Perkins) A female agouti mouse with what seems like multiple lengths of fur on her face peers over the edge of a plastic lab cage while holding on with her front paws. (Marc C. Perkins) A closeup of a black female mouse's left ear, showing fine hairs covering most of its surface, and the entrance to the ear canal.  Note that this image has been cropped heavily, and thus cannot be printed large. (Marc C. Perkins) This orange female mouse is hunkered down in some bedding eating a sunflower seed.  But what's awesome is that you can actually see her lower eyelashes; she has at least 5 long straight hairs easily visible at the bottom of her left eye.  In fact, I didn't even know mice had eyelashes until I looked at this picture at 100% zoom. (Marc C. Perkins)

7 thoughts on “Photographing mice: the adorableness is overwhelming!

  1. These are absolutly beautiful photos! What camera do you use to get such close up details of small fast moving animals like mice? I have a pet rat at home and would love to get even a small bit of this clarity, detail and character you wonderfully get in each photograph.

    1. Thanks! I’m glad you like them 🙂

      My primary camera is a Canon 30D (a DSLR), and for these pictures I used a macro lens (Canon 60mm EF-S). Probably the most important thing (besides having a camera/lens that can focus close in) is having enough light so you can use a fast shutter speed. I used an on-camera flash (Canon 580EXII) with a diffuser attached to bounce the light off the walls of the room (to minimize the shadows caused by a typical flash-straight-in-the-face shot). But even a typical built-in flash on a point-and-shoot can do wonders at helping freeze motion. Or just use a really sunny and bright room. And you don’t need a DSLR and fancy lens to get good pictures of rats and mice; point and shoots can do great work too.

      Oh, and another secret: once you know you can get well exposed, motion-frozen pictures, take a LOT of them. It’s really hard to focus up close, and you’ll get dozens of pictures of out of focus mouse tails or whiskers with nothing else in the frame 🙂

      Let me know if you have any other questions!

  2. These are the most adorable pictures of mice I have ever seen. I absolutely love these! You have definitely inspired me to adopt some mice of my own. 🙂 Great work!!

  3. Hi, thanks for this post and sharing the gorgeous pictures of your little mice. We sadly lost two to tumours recently which left one, so we got her three buddies and last night, after all the prep involved, we were able to introduce them all. (They could teach humans a thing or two about getting along, there hasn’t been a fight or a squeak out of them!) I was previously neglecting the fact that light is so important and was expecting miracles in low light from my dslr but I’m hopeful of getting some good close ups now that I’ve read your article!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *