The masked shrew is one of the smallest mammals in the world and it lives right here in northern Wisconsin. It is identified by its slender, small body with a long sharply pointed, long whiskered snout always atwitch giving it information about its surroundings. It has tiny beadlike eyes, small ears often concealed in soft fur, and a relatively long tail. Fur color is variable but mostly brownish-black above with smoky gray underparts.
The masked shrew is one of the smallest mammals in the world and it lives right here in northern Wisconsin. It is identified by its slender, small body with a long sharply pointed, long whiskered snout always atwitch giving it information about its surroundings. It has tiny beadlike eyes, small ears often concealed in soft fur, and a relatively long tail. Fur color is variable but mostly brownish-black above with smoky gray underparts.
I was photographing birds at our bird feeders when it happened. Suddenly, I saw what appeared to be a mouse quickly come out of a hole in the snow, grab something, and dart back into the same hole. Then it happened again and again, in fact 15 times in one minute, as determined later by a video I took of this interesting event.
Later I determined it wasn’t a mouse at all. It was a masked shrew, one of the smallest mammals in the world weighing in at about 3.5 to 5.5 grams. It is also the second smallest shrew in the world after the pygmy shrew. The masked shrew, sometimes called the cinereous shrew, is found over much of North America and throughout Wisconsin. So, what is a shrew anyway, is it beneficial, and how does it differ from a mouse?
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