Shrews feed primarily on insects. Many other invertebrates, small vertebrates, and some vegetable material, particulary seeds, are also eaten. Insects, arthropods, and earthworms are more frequently eaten. They capture food by searching ground litter, digging superficial burrows in the ground, and using echolocation by high-pitched calls. Blarina hylophaga has specialized teeth from which submaxillary glands secrete poison. This poison immobilizes small animals, making it possible for shrews to kill prey larger than themselves, such as mice, fast and efficiently.
Animal Foods: mammals; amphibians; insects; terrestrial non-insect arthropods; terrestrial worms
Primary Diet: carnivore (Insectivore )
The skin of B. hylophaga contains glands that secrete odors repugnant to predators. Carnivorous mammals often capture B. hylophaga, but seldom eat them due to these foul-smelling skin glands.
Known Predators:
Short-tailed shrews have a head and body length that ranges from 75 to 105 mm, a tail length that is 17 to 30 mm, and a body weight of 15 to 30 grams. Their fur is silvery-gray to black dorsally, and their underside is only slightly paler. The body is robust, with a pointed muzzle that extends beyond the mouth. They have small eyes, ears hidden by the fur, and small front and hind limbs and feet. There is not much sexual dimorphism. Blarina has five unicuspid teeth in the upper jaw. Females have six mammae.
Blarina hylophaga is very similar to Blarina carolinensis. Both are small, slate-gray to brown shrews with short tails and no external ears. However, B. hylophaga has slightly larger cranial measurements, and a noticeably larger fourth premolar. Blarina hylophaga is more gray in color, whereas B. carolinensis is tinged with brown.
In comparison to Blarina brevicauda, B. hylophaga is less robust. In a study done by Russell A. Benedict, the two animals were classified to species by a few characteristics, including hind foot measurement, total length, and weight. Blarina brevicauda were classified as such if having a hind foot measurement greater than or equal to 15.5 mm, a total length greater than 115 mm, and a weight greater than 15 g. On the other hand, B. hylophaga typically weighed less than 20 g, had less than 120 mm in total length, and had a hind foot less than or equal to 15 mm.
Range mass: 13 to 16 g.
Range length: 92 to 121 mm.
Average length: 90.00 mm.
Sexual Dimorphism: sexes alike
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Few wild Blarina individuals survive more than a year. However, captive individuals have survived to 33 months.
Range lifespan
Status: captivity: 33 (high) months.
Typical lifespan
Status: wild: 1 (high) years.
Average lifespan
Status: wild: <1 years.
Average lifespan
Status: captivity: 2.8 years.
Blarina hylophaga is found in various habitats. The species prefers the damp soils of oak-hickory and other deciduous forests, grasslands, and the banks of rivers and lakes that allow easy burrowing. However, these shrews avoid standing water. They use the trails and burrows excavated by other small mammals in soft soils. In deciduous forests they most frequently are found near old decaying logs and at the bases of rock outcrops. They may burrow extensively under leaf litter, logs, humus of the forest floor, and deeply into the soil, but ground cover is not required. In addition, they may shelter in logs, stumps, or crevices of building foundations.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: forest
Other Habitat Features: riparian
Blarina hylophaga ranges from southern Nebraska and Iowa to southern Texas; east to Missouri and northwestern Arkansas; Oklahoma; extending into Louisiana.
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native )
Blarina are the most fossorial of American shrews, aiding in soil aeration. They use surface and subsurface runways and burrows of small mammals. They also use leaf litter and decomposing trees to burrow and nest. Blarina serves an important role in controlling the population size of larch sawflies and other destructive insects.
Ecosystem Impact: biodegradation ; soil aeration
Blarina hylophaga serves as a check on larch sawflies and other destructive insects.
Positive Impacts: controls pest population
The venomous saliva of B. hylophaga has negative effects on humans when they are bitten, although the venom is not life-threatening. This shrew may also be a nuisance when sheltering in crevices of building foundations, especially because they produce a foul smell.
Negative Impacts: injures humans (bites or stings, venomous ); household pest
Blarina hylophaga has a Global Heritage and National Heritage status rank of G5 and N5 respectively by the U.S. ESA. Both these rankings describe the species' status as secure, meaning individuals are common, abundant, and widespread in its range. Blarina species have been wiped out by human development and habitat loss, as well as predation by domestic cats. The subspecies B. hylophaga plumbea is known by 7 specimens on the Texas coast at the Aransas Wildlife Refuge, where small groups of B. hylophaga have been recently discovered.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
These animals use scent for communication of reproductive and territorial information. It is likey that tactile cues are important during mating and between a mother and her offspring.
Communication Channels: tactile ; chemical
Other Communication Modes: pheromones ; scent marks
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
Blarina are effective climbers. One B. brevicauda individual was documented to have climbed 1.9 m up a tree.
Mating is reported to be polygynandrous.
Mating System: polygynandrous (promiscuous)
Blarina hylophaga is usually solitary, but individuals come together from early spring to early autumn in order to reproduce. The estrous cycle is 2 to 4 days. Gestation averages from 21 to 22 days. Litter size ranges from 4 to 10, with usually 5 or 6 young. The babies are born hairless, pink, and wrinkled. Nests are constructed of leaves, grasses, and plant fibers. They are usually made under logs, in burrows, or even rarely, on top of the ground. Females produce 2 to 3 litters per year.
Breeding interval: These shrews can breed two or three times per year.
Breeding season: Breeding takes place from early spring to early autumn.
Range number of offspring: 4 to 10.
Average number of offspring: 5 or 6.
Range gestation period: 21 to 22 days.
Range weaning age: 18 to 20 days.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 6 to 12 weeks.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 6 to 12 weeks.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; fertilization ; viviparous
Average number of offspring: 6.5.
Parental care is provided by the females. The young of B. hylophaga leave the nest at 18 to 20 days and are weaned a few days after. Females attain sexual maturity at 6 weeks of age, and males at 12 weeks of age. It is possible for a female shrew born in early spring to breed by late summer or autumn of the same year. Males, most often, do not breed until the spring after their birth.
Parental Investment: altricial ; pre-fertilization (Provisioning, Protecting: Female); pre-hatching/birth (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-independence (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female)
Elliot's short-tailed shrew (Blarina hylophaga) is a small, slate grey, short-tailed species of shrew. Its common name comes from Daniel Giraud Elliot, who first described the species in 1899.
Elliot's short-tailed shrew is similar in appearance to the closely related southern short-tailed shrew, although slightly larger on average, and was long thought to belong to the same species. It is a heavily built shrew with short legs and tail, and a long, pointed snout with long whiskers.[3] The ears and eyes are both small, the eyelids being permanently closed in some individuals, a feature otherwise unknown among shrews.[4]
The fur is velvety in texture, and uniformly colored greyish to brown. Adults range from 9 to 12 cm (3.5 to 4.7 in) in total length, including the 2-to-3 cm (0.79-to-1.18 in) tail, and weigh 13 to 16 g (0.46 to 0.56 oz).[3]
Elliot's short-tailed shrew is found in lowland environments with heavy vegetation from southern Iowa and Nebraska in the north to parts of Texas and northern Louisiana in the south, including much of the states of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, and the northeastern corner of Colorado.[2] Two subspecies are currently recognised:
The species inhabits a diverse range of habitats, including grasslands, agricultural land, and woodland. Although it generally prefers well watered environments with plenty of ground litter, it is also known from relatively dry and sandy terrain in Texas and Colorado, often with minimal ground cover.[3]
Like other shrews, this species is insectivorous, its diet consisting primarily of beetles and slugs, along with other insects, spiders, and earthworms. They may also eat a small quantity of plants and fungi, and have been reported to eat North American deermice on occasion. Predators include owls, hawks, snakes, and swift foxes.[3]
Elliot's short-tailed shrew is generally a solitary, nocturnal animal, spending the day sleeping in burrows in soft soil or leaf litter. The burrows may contain nests made from grass or leaves, and are surrounded by a network of trackways that the shrew uses while hunting for prey. They have been reported to travel across home ranges of anything from 0.06 to 0.55 hectares (0.15 to 1.36 acres), and to travel mostly around dawn and sunset. Having poor eyesight, they hunt primarily by means of echolocation. They are active throughout the year, and do not hibernate.[3]
The shrew breeds from early spring to late summer, and may be able to raise two or three litters per in a year. Gestation lasts 21 or 22 days, and results in the birth of four to seven hairless young. The young are weaned, with a full coat of fuzzy hair, by one month of age, not receiving the adult coat until they have reached adult size. Individuals can live for up to two years.[3]
Elliot's short-tailed shrew was originally described as a subspecies of Blarina brevicauda, and was only identified as a separate species in 1981. Genetic analysis to determine its precise relationship to other members of the genus has been ambiguous, with some studies placing it as the closest relative to the southern short-tailed shrew,[5] and others showing it as being basal to the other species.[6] The oldest fossils of the species date from the last Ice Age, and the two subspecies may have diverged as recently as one thousand years ago.[3]
Elliot's short-tailed shrew (Blarina hylophaga) is a small, slate grey, short-tailed species of shrew. Its common name comes from Daniel Giraud Elliot, who first described the species in 1899.