Mice

Although mice may live up to two and a half years in captivity, the average mouse in the wild lives only about four months,[citation needed] primarily owing to heavy predation. Cats, wild dogs, foxes, birds of prey, snakes and even certain kinds of arthropods have been known to prey heavily upon mice. Nevertheless, because of its remarkable adaptability to almost any environment, and its ability to live commensally with humans, the mouse is regarded to be the second most successful mammalian genus living on Earth today, after humans.

Mice can at times be harmful rodents, damaging and eating crops and spreading diseases through their parasites and feces. In western North America, breathing dust that has come in contact with mouse feces has been linked to the deadly hantavirus. The original motivation for the domestication of cats is thought to have been for their predation of mice and their relatives, the rats.