Northern Short-tailed Shrew

About the Northern Short-tailed Shrew

The northern short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda) is the largest shrew in the genus Blarina, and occurs in the northeastern region of North America. It is a semifossorial, highly active, and voracious insectivore and is present in a variety of habitats like broadleaved and pine forests among shrubs and hedges as well as grassy river banks. It is notable in that it is one of the few venomous mammals. The specific epithet, brevicauda, is a combination of the Latin brevis and cauda, meaning "short tail".

B. brevicauda is a red-toothed shrew, one of three or four species (depending on the authority) in the genus Blarina. It was formerly considered to be a sister subspecies of the southern short-tailed shrew (B. carolinensis). The species has been divided into 11 subspecies based on morphological characteristics, which are grouped into two semispecies: B. b. brevicauda and B. b. talpoides; these groupings were mirrored by a molecular systematics study of the mitochondrial cytochrome b sequence. The two groups of subspecies are thought to have been kept isolated from each other by Pleistocene glaciers.

This shrew has a total length of 108 to 140 mm (4... Wikipedia →