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Southern Short-tailed Shrew

Southern Short-tailed Shrew by cotinis.
Close-up of head. Southern Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina carolinensis), I believe. Found under leaf litter (Durham, North Carolina) in the fall while I was raking leaves. I captured it carefully in a cardboard box and put it into an open area for photography. It seemed rather disoriented in the open and held still for a minute or two. I released in in some dense leaf litter.

Blarina_carolinensisPCSL20933B 

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Anita363  Pro User  says:

Wow, that's cool! I've never seen one. Well done!
Posted 46 months ago. ( permalink )

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cotinis  Pro User  says:

I've found these critters just twice, both times while raking leaves in my yard (two different houses here in Durham). They must be pretty common in deciduous woods, but it seems they keep under the leaf litter. One of the two I captured made little squeaks--I imagine these are echolocation sounds--known in several (?) shrews. Some members of this genus are also known to be venomous, but I could find no documentation of that for this particular species.
Posted 46 months ago. ( permalink )

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ecl58  Pro User  says:

Regarding their being venomous, it used to be that there was only one species in this genus, so I doubt that the fact that someone recently decided to make this southern version a "new" species really matters as far as this particular trait. That's just a guess on my part, though. Short-tailed shrews are fascinating, and I used to devote a lot of time to seeking them out.
Posted 38 months ago. ( permalink )

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mybunnyrexie  Pro User  says:

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Flickrbon Guide to Mammals, and we'd love to have your photo added to the group. I have started a project, our goal is to have at least one picture of every mammal. if you post the picture, it will be posted to the external website, which is currently under construction. Credit is given to the original owner of the photo. We would LOVE to have your image(s) in the group! Just no humans please ; )
Sneak Peak: flickrmammals.googlepages.com/africanmammals
Posted 29 months ago. ( permalink )

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marnanel says:

Thanks for posting this under a free licence. I've used it with attribution as part of my tutorial on the Shavian alphabet.

shavian.org.uk/learn/sure-measure
Posted 6 weeks ago. ( permalink )

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