Eurasian pygmy shrew

Description

The Eurasian pygmy shrew is one of the smallest land-dwelling mammals in Europe. The snout-vent length is 42 to 66 mm, the tail length 35 to 46 mm and the weight 2.6 to 5.9 g. The upperparts and the flanks are plain brown, the underpart is grey.

The Eurasian pygmy shrew resembles the Eurasian shrew, a relative of the red-toothed shrew genus, but it is much smaller than the latter. Compared to the Eurasian shrew, it has a thicker and longer tail. Another distinguishing feature is the colouration of the Eurasian shrew, which appears bicoloured due to a dark dorsal colouration with distinctly lighter flanks. 

Alpine, Eurasian water shrew and Mediterranean water shrew have black to black-grey fur. The latter two species are significantly larger and more robust than the Eurasian pygmy shrew. The only distantly related native white-toothed shrews, i.e. the bicoloured shrews, European white-toothed shrews and lesser white-toothed shrews, differ from the Eurasian pygmy shrew, among other things, in that the auricles are not covered by hairs and the tips of the teeth are white instead of dark brown, as well as in that longer hairs occasionally stick out from the tail.

Habitat

The Eurasian pygmy shrew inhabits wet meadows, moors and mixed forests.

The text is a translation of an excerpt from Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwergspitzmaus). On wikipedia the text is available under a „Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike“ licence. Status: 09 August 2021