There are Mouse lines -- closely bred mice used for medical etc. experiments. Inbred mice hold a lot of surprises.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4888080.stm By Rebecca Morelle
BBC News science reporter
Regeneration - the ability to recreate lost or damaged cells, tissues, organs or even limbs - has a limited capacity in mammals.
While skin and hair cells constantly renew themselves, unlike a newt, if a human loses a leg, there is no second chance.
But the discovery of a strain of mouse, the Murphy Roths Large (MRL), with remarkable regenerative capabilities has opened up the possibility that those properties could be transferred to other mammals.
Professor Ellen Heber-Katz, a scientist from the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, US, was part of the way through an immunological study when she first stumbled across the MRL mouse's amazing abilities.
She was looking at the effects of a drug, and had marked the mice that had received the drug by punching a small hole in their ear to distinguish them from those who had not.
"I went upstairs and I looked in the cage, but none of the mice were marked," she said. "I looked at them and thought: 'what's happened?' I thought the post doc hadn't done the experiment. Think what good could be done with all the money bushie is wasting on his endless wars.