Shrew: their lifestyle gives you goosebumps (10 photos)

She doesn't touch her relatives. Winter makes the shrew eat... herself! Brain, heart, liver, muscles and even bones. But why such sacrifices?





Hey, you, are you afraid to mess with me without a huge glove?

A common shrew, a shrew or a forest shrew - behind its fluffy fur, its ribs sticking out from hunger and crazy burning eyes are almost invisible. In appearance, the animal is somewhat similar to an ordinary mouse: gray-brown, with a thin naked tail, a sharp nose and just as tiny - only 8 centimeters in length and 16 grams in weight. But they are not even close to mice - neither in the taxonomy, nor in their way of life. Shrews belong to the order of insectivores, that is, they are friends of hedgehogs, moles and bats. And mice are in the order of rodents, and they are as close a relative to shrews as an elephant is to a person.



Photo explanation of why the shrew was called a shrew. The name is given for the reddish-brown color of its teeth in the first year of life.

Shrews live at the limit of all conceivable and inconceivable possibilities for a mammal. For this, they can safely be called the "most energy-intensive" animals on earth. According to scientists, the metabolic rate of a mini-wendigo exceeds the indicators of similar-sized animals by 258%! It's like shoving a BelAZ engine into a Matiz! Just imagine: the heart of a shrew beats up to 1000 times a minute! Only a hummingbird beats faster than a tuk-tuk, but they are birds - their metabolism must be high due to the stress of flight. And in mammals, it is usually several times lower. But the shrew lights it up to the fullest.





Wow, what a fat worm I got! It's enough for the whole day!

To maintain such a high energy metabolism, shrews have to consume up to 90% of their own weight every day and eat every 2-3 hours. This is the same as if a person ate about 70 kilograms of food per day - we would have to eat literally without stopping. Otherwise - starvation. Shrews cannot accumulate even a gram of excess fat, they cannot sleep or rest peacefully, shrews live in a constant, endless, exhausting search for food.



Hooray, I'll live! Well, at least for the next couple of hours...

The only ray of hope in all this madness is the poison with which the predators paralyze the feeding insects. The shrew is one of the few toxic mammals in nature! Nature has endowed the animals with the ability to produce neurotoxins in the submandibular salivary glands: during a bite, they seep into the mouth and act directly on the prey. For a person, the bite of the animal is unpleasant, but does not carry any serious consequences. But the bugs and spiders remain paralyzed. In fairness, not for long - very soon the frozen bug will end up in the bottomless stomach of a tiny animal.



Your cat has never been prepared for such violent "mice"!

If life is relatively simple in the summer, then in the winter things go from bad to worse. Due to their super-fast metabolism, shrews cannot just go into hibernation, like other animals do. They are physically unable to store up fat. The animals remain active all winter: they rummage under and above the snow, go down into holes, cracks, rake fallen leaves and eat almost non-stop. But this is still not enough. To maintain life in a tiny body, they have to literally digest themselves. Usually, when there is a calorie deficit, animals first digest fat and muscle, but shrews have no fat, and muscles are needed for constant movement. Therefore, bones and entrails are used up.



From the outside, the shrew seems plump. In fact, there is not a gram of excess fat in it!

During the winter, the animal loses up to 21% of its weight - even vital organs such as the heart, liver and brain shrink. The latter, as the most energy-consuming organ, can lose 30% at once. First of all, the "unnecessary" parts of the brain are destroyed, such as those responsible for complex cognitive processes and solving all sorts of non-standard problems and planning. Also eaten are the areas where spatial memory is stored, the departments of social interaction and sensory processing of information from the sense organs. Simply put, the animal becomes noticeably stupider.



Hey, who are you calling stupid, huh? No, seriously, who? I don't get it...

But here the choice is obvious: smart and dead or stupid but alive. Moreover, the dulling does not happen forever - in the spring, when there is enough food again, the shrews will restore the volume of the brain and become smarter again. You will not often see such a trick in the animal world. First dissolve, and then re-create neural connections - not everyone can do that.



I don’t know what it is, but if it fits in the mouth - it automatically becomes food.

But shrews cannot do this endlessly, maximum 1-2 winters, it will not be possible to do this many times, the body simply will not withstand. Therefore, they have a very short life - only 3 years. In order not to waste time, as soon as it becomes warm and nutritious, all the shrews that survived the winter begin to actively reproduce.



It is fashionable to watch videos in 2x acceleration now, but shrews have been living in 500x acceleration for many millions of years!

Males put all their last energy into searching for a female ready to reproduce and fighting for the right to become a father. Females give their last strength to pregnancy. It does not last long - 3-4 weeks, and the mother watches over the offspring for about a month, after which she sends the young to free bread far from her site. In one summer, a shrew can give birth to up to 4 litters of 5-7 babies each - everything depends heavily on the availability of food. In addition, the young join the process of reproducing their own kind in the same season - by the age of 3 months, they have their own babies. All this - in between the endless search for food and hiding from predators.



Give the shrew food!

Shrews are on the very first steps of the food pyramid, so they are hunted by literally everyone who is not too lazy: from birds of prey to foxes and domestic cats. Just think about how much has fallen on this tiny creature - and they survive in spite of everything. If the world experiences another mass extinction, bet on these guys. With their ability to adapt to all sorts of living conditions and the ability to effectively starve, they will definitely not miss their chance. Perhaps the next intelligent civilization will start with them.