Thank you! I have no patience for articles headlined with “Picture of rare <blank> taken!” that do not lead with the picture. If I want to read more about it, I will, but lead with the damn image. I know I know, the whole point is to show me ads, etc. Still gonna fart my fart into the wind I guess.
danmur 37 days ago [-]
That picture at the beginning is a high quality troll, I spent ages looking at it before I read the caption: "The team set up traps in vegetation areas like this one to capture Mount Lyell shrews."
spondylosaurus 38 days ago [-]
Cute little critter!
Looking at that Wikipedia page, I didn't realize there were multiple "grading" systems for conservation risk. Interesting that two different systems have two different risk assessments for the same animal.
Loughla 38 days ago [-]
Shrews are cute but MEAN.
A few years ago we had a couple of feet of snow in a day. As I was snow blowing the driveway, I noticed all these little tunnels on the edge that was cut off by the side of the blower.
Then I saw a tiny little animal. I thought he was a mole. So I took my glove off and picked him up, as a good hillbilly would do.
That thing bit me like fifteen times up my thumb before I could react to yeet him across the yard.
Lesson learned.
pengaru 37 days ago [-]
You picked up a wild animal and it fought for its survival.
That's not evidence of being mean but alive and interested in staying that way.
I had a similar experience with a common squirrel that found its way into a friend's kitchen. It's a story about a stupid human treating a wild animal as his pet cat and getting holes in his hand in the process, not how squirrels are mean.
tyre 38 days ago [-]
That doesn’t sound mean. It sounds like you shouldn’t pick up a wild animal.
not2b 38 days ago [-]
The shrew had to assume you were going to eat it, and it did what it needed to do to escape.
sixothree 38 days ago [-]
I think you cane safely assume he meant “fierce”. Or you know, insist on strict semantic meaning.
lief79 38 days ago [-]
I had a northern short tailed shrew running around my basement. After luckily live catching it (and getting the correct id), I also discovered that they are mildly venomous. Go figure.
Wish it hadn't found a way into the house, as I would have liked to have it keep clearing pests out of my yard. It got dropped off else where quickly, after a snack.
metalman 38 days ago [-]
Are these the same critters that squirls have been hunting and eating? Big thing about that with the squirls catching them, and killing them "with a bite to the neck" just like bigger preditors, and then chowing down.It was somewhere over California way, and there were researchers studying the systematic hunting by squirls, so these shrews days might be numbered, even after surviving extinction.
I used to get $1 for a squirl tail when I was a kid, sold them at the store, and used the money for gas for boat and boxes of shells.....wonder what a shrew is worth:).kidding, kidding..ok half kidding....anybody actualy know?
brudgers 37 days ago [-]
The recent report was of some California squirrels eating voles.
>Editor's note: This story was corrected at 12:15 p.m., Jan. 17, to clarify that the shrews weigh 2 to 3 grams, according to the researchers' measurements.
rob74 38 days ago [-]
According to other Wikipedia articles (https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorex_lyelli), almost half of that length is the tail, so that might explain it. Also, I assume most of the "bulk" you see in the photos is fur (which a small mammal in a harsh climate needs a lot of for insulation).
Finnucane 38 days ago [-]
The reason they're never seen alive is because they're actually balloon animals.
mmsc 38 days ago [-]
Look up Etruscan shrew. They weigh less than 2g on avg.
natosaichek 38 days ago [-]
Wikipedia says:
The shrew is between 8.9 and 10 centimetres (3.5 and 3.9 in) long[4] and weighs 4–5 grams (0.14–0.18 oz).[5] It has 32 teeth.[4]
Must be a mistake on both?!? No way its got less that 5 ccs of blood in a 9-10 cm long body.
Someone 37 days ago [-]
> No way its got less that 5 ccs of blood in a 9-10 cm long body.
Scaling that body up by a factor of 10 would get you 5 × 10³ = 5,000 ccs of blood in a 90-100 cm long body.
That’s 5 liter. We also have (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_volume) “A typical adult has a blood volume of approximately 5 liters”, and the typical adult is quite a bit taller than 90-100 cm.
s0rce 38 days ago [-]
Must be, a typical hummingbird weighs more than that (4g).
zombot 38 days ago [-]
Yup, they used civilized units instead of the usual feudal ones.
His channel has lots of other amazing videos documenting creatures, mostly cold blooded. The level of knowledge imparted is very high, not just another wildlife show. Definitely worth watching.
rex_lupi 37 days ago [-]
came here to post this exact video!
lenerdenator 37 days ago [-]
I'm not an expert biologist by any means, but I do believe that this shrew - this critter, if you will - fulfills all the criteria of being just a little guy or girl.
maxweylandt 38 days ago [-]
Very well done, always nice to see non (not yet?) professional scientists contribute :)
This reminds me I've been meaning to set up a moth trap.
bawolff 38 days ago [-]
Based on the headline i assumed it was endangered but appearently not, its just difficult to photograph.
Image: https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_236362254...
Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lyell_shrew
Looking at that Wikipedia page, I didn't realize there were multiple "grading" systems for conservation risk. Interesting that two different systems have two different risk assessments for the same animal.
A few years ago we had a couple of feet of snow in a day. As I was snow blowing the driveway, I noticed all these little tunnels on the edge that was cut off by the side of the blower.
Then I saw a tiny little animal. I thought he was a mole. So I took my glove off and picked him up, as a good hillbilly would do.
That thing bit me like fifteen times up my thumb before I could react to yeet him across the yard.
Lesson learned.
That's not evidence of being mean but alive and interested in staying that way.
I had a similar experience with a common squirrel that found its way into a friend's kitchen. It's a story about a stupid human treating a wild animal as his pet cat and getting holes in his hand in the process, not how squirrels are mean.
Wish it hadn't found a way into the house, as I would have liked to have it keep clearing pests out of my yard. It got dropped off else where quickly, after a snack.
There is a reason that unpleasant women are called shrews[1], for example as in The Taming of the Shrew[2].
[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shrew
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taming_of_the_Shrew
That's got to be a typo...
[1] https://www.jax.org/jax-mice-and-services/strain-data-sheet-...
>Editor's note: This story was corrected at 12:15 p.m., Jan. 17, to clarify that the shrews weigh 2 to 3 grams, according to the researchers' measurements.
The shrew is between 8.9 and 10 centimetres (3.5 and 3.9 in) long[4] and weighs 4–5 grams (0.14–0.18 oz).[5] It has 32 teeth.[4]
Must be a mistake on both?!? No way its got less that 5 ccs of blood in a 9-10 cm long body.
Scaling that body up by a factor of 10 would get you 5 × 10³ = 5,000 ccs of blood in a 90-100 cm long body.
That’s 5 liter. We also have (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_volume) “A typical adult has a blood volume of approximately 5 liters”, and the typical adult is quite a bit taller than 90-100 cm.
https://youtu.be/Jd2CdraSqt0?si=7xcYlM_GH4-1uw_k
His channel has lots of other amazing videos documenting creatures, mostly cold blooded. The level of knowledge imparted is very high, not just another wildlife show. Definitely worth watching.
This reminds me I've been meaning to set up a moth trap.
That should be the title, not god damn Big Foot level anticipation.