November 1, 2009 - Tiny Predators

Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

A rustle in the dry leaves might catch your attention. You look and see brown leaves moving on the forest floor. Watch longer and you might see a tiny gray form emerge from under those leaves. If it looks like a pointy-nosed mouse with small eyes it could very well be a shrew. Shrews are not rodents like mice. In fact, they are not even closely related to rodents. In general, shrews are small mammals that forage for seeds, insects, nuts, earthworms and a variety of other food in the leaf litter and dense vegetation. Shrews have a high metabolic rate and must eat 80 to 90 percent of their body weight daily to survive. As a result they are active hunters using their keen senses of smell and hearing to find food in, under and among fallen leaves.
 
This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.