red-toothed shrew ~ 02/10/14 ~ Stevens Creek

a red-toothed shrew (likely ornate shrew, Trowbridge's shrew, or vagrant shrew)

Sorex sp. (likely S. ornatus, S. trowbridgii, or S. vagrans)

Cool.  Well, maybe not as spectacular as the ladybug aggregation, but I like featuring diversity on Nature ID and I don't have very many mammals in my collection.  Eh, I have no problem posting pics of dead animals, because that's often the only way I ever get to see them.  Like with the mole I found, I wonder how I knew this was a shrew without ever having seen one before.  In fact, I found not one but two dead shrews very close to each other on the trail, and we postulated on how they could have died without any external signs of trauma.  It could simply be that they died of old age, since they reportedly only live a little more than a year.  There doesn't seem to be very much known about them. Many times people tend to find their carcasses in discarded beverage containers.  I had a little chuckle noting how similar a dead, muddy shrew looks just like a muddy Douglas-fir cone, whose seeds happen to be a food source for Trowbridge's shrew.  If I had to guess the ID between the 3 spp. reported in the area, I would guess Trowbridge's strictly based on habitat.  I'm pleased I was able to capture the red color in the teeth tips - click first picture for zoom, or check out Seabrooke Leckie's excellent close-up photo of shrew teeth.  Btw, Sorex spp. are also called long-tailed shrews.  There are 13 spp. of shrews in CA, and 40 spp. of shrews in North America.

ps - Thanks to Ken's comment, check out Codger's canned shrew and Ken's own bottled shrew with great teeth photos.