> The fact that mice don't appear to deliberately jump off high things as a way to get down tells me that they probably do get hurt...
They explicitly added the caveat about the soft ground. There'd be very little opportunity for mouses to become comfortable with jumping from high areas as there'd be very few occasions that satisfy the requirement. If the mouse jumped into a cave and can't get out, it'd starve to death. If it jumped off a cliff and fell into water, it would drown. If it fell off a skyscraper, there'd be Asphalt at the ground etc. Off the top of my head, there are no natural places in which mouses could safely get comfortable with jumping. Thus, they'd only do so if they're in mortal danger. And they absolutely do jump off high places if they're terrified
Mice around me fairly frequently climb trees. They know whats at the bottom of the tree (hard soil). Yet I never see them jumping off - they always climb back down the way they came up.
It could be to avoid getting disorientated though, or to be able to see a predator and reverse course...
Where I live in northern Europe almost all ground in the forests are soft. There is moss, small plants, grass or leaves everywhere.
I can't imagine why the mice would climb trees, but if they did and fall down, they probably gonna be fine most of the time.
In many forests there is lots of large rocks and steep slope/cliffs/precipice in the range 0-5 m where mice possibly could shorten their path by jumping. But I'd suppose they rather use a path they can go in both directions.
They explicitly added the caveat about the soft ground. There'd be very little opportunity for mouses to become comfortable with jumping from high areas as there'd be very few occasions that satisfy the requirement. If the mouse jumped into a cave and can't get out, it'd starve to death. If it jumped off a cliff and fell into water, it would drown. If it fell off a skyscraper, there'd be Asphalt at the ground etc. Off the top of my head, there are no natural places in which mouses could safely get comfortable with jumping. Thus, they'd only do so if they're in mortal danger. And they absolutely do jump off high places if they're terrified