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Shrews

Soricidae (family), “Shrew Family”

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Shrews (family Soricidae) are small mole-like mammals classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are not to be confused with treeshrews, otter shrews, elephant shrews, West Indies shrews, or marsupial shrews, which belong to different families or orders. Although its external appearance is generally that of a long-nosed mouse, a shrew is not a rodent, as mice are. It is, in fact, a much closer relative of hedgehogs and moles, and shrews are related to rodents only to the extent that both belong to the Boreoeutheria magnorder. Shrews have sharp, spike-like teeth, not the familiar gnawing front incisor teeth of rodents. Shrews are distributed almost worldwide; of the major tropical and temperate land masses, only New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand have no native shrews; in South…