#soricidae

Masked Shrew Sorex cinereus

A common shrew found in Alaska, Canada, and the northern United States. They eat insects, worms, snails, small rodents, salamanders, and seeds. Due to its high metabolism, the masked shrew can eat three times its weight a day. The shrew has to eat almost constantly, because they can only survive a few hours without food Their metabolism drops when they are at rest.

Arizona shrew Sorex arizonae

A shrew found in Arizona and New Mexico, United States, and in Mexico. They are found in mountainous areas including the Chiricahua, Huachuca, Santa Rica, Animas, and Sierra Madre occidental, in conifer forest and Mexican oak-pine woodland.

Least Concern

the holy trinity

Girl, are you a Cinereus shrew? Because you're making my heart beat at over 1,000 times per minute! Like many shrews, cinereus shrews have an incredibly fast heart rate- and a fast metabolism to match. These shrews must eat almost 90% of their body weight every day, and may actually starve to death if they go more than a few hours without food.

Do not be fooled by the simple appearance of this shrew, for they are a Hero Shrew (Scutisorex somereni). They are found in forests in The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi [1], are approximately 12-15 cm in length [2] and have an incredibly interesting spine.

Essentially, the vertebrae of their spine are incredibly interlocked [3]. No other species came even close until 2013, when Thor’s Hero Shrew (S. thori) was discovered, who had an intermediate version of this dense spine [4]. You can see a comparison between these two and a related shrew with a normal spine in the image below.

This leads to incredible resilience, as the 50-70 g Hero Shrew has been recorded to be able to withstand a 70 kg human standing on their back. This is why the Mangbetu people of the Congo carried their ashes as a talisman and referred to them as Hero Shrews, a name which western researchers took as well [4]. The weird thing is we don’t actually know why their spine is like that. An analysis of the bones indicated this would evolve as a response to frequent or stronger axial compressive forces, but why they would experience those is still unclear [3].

There were some hypotheses related to their diet, but an analysis in that regard found they mainly feed on earthworms, a completely usual diet for a shrew. They also had the longest recorded intestine to body ratio for a shrew, at least back in 2007, which, again, their diet would not particularly suggest. They’re just kinda like that [5].

It wasn’t a vole but a shrew! Specifically a northern short tailed shrew. I’ve always wanted to see a shrew in person so this was a dream come true!