Eurasian Water Shrew

About the Eurasian Water Shrew

The Eurasian water shrew (Neomys fodiens), known in the United Kingdom as the water shrew, is a relatively large shrew, up to 10 cm (4 in) long, with a tail up to three-quarters as long again. It has short, dark fur, often with a few white tufts, a white belly, and a few stiff hairs around the feet and tail. It lives close to fresh water, hunting aquatic prey in the water and invertebrates nearby.

Like many shrews, the water shrew has venomous saliva, making it one of the few venomous mammals. It lives a solitary life and is found throughout the northern part of Europe and Asia, from Britain to Korea. With genetic as well as morphological evidences, the speciation of N. fodiens from other species in genus Neomys seem to be earlier than the divergence between N. teres and N. anomalus, despite a large portion of geographic range of N. anomalus overlaps with N. fodiens. Another phylogenetic study also supports such claim with phylogenetic tree and associated split times between lineages. Subsequently, several hypotheses of the evolutionary history of the genus Neomys have been made. One of the hypotheses claims that the speciation between species N. fodiens, N. anomalus... Wikipedia →