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  • MelonYellow@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    10 days ago

    Crazy.

    The shrew hasn’t been trapped or recorded in two decades, Subramanyan told SFGATE: “So it’s very possibly one of the most poorly known mammal species in California.”

    There’s a reason why nobody had photographed a living Mount Lyell shrew. Shrews have incredibly fast metabolisms and will die if they don’t eat every two hours, Subramanyan said. To catch a living shrew, researchers need to monitor their traps constantly. If mammalogists set an overnight trap, they’ll wake in the morning to find a dead shrew. Jain, Forbes and Subramanyan slept for no longer than two hours at a time, checking the traps regularly. At night, temperatures reached 15 degrees.

  • Pronell@lemmy.world
    3·
    10 days ago

    ‘The Mount Lyell shrew (Sorex lyelli) is 9 to 10 centimeters long and weighs between 2 and 3 grams, according to the researchers’ measurements.’

    …really? That’s insanely light for such a long body.