American Shrewmole

Fascinating facts about the American Shrewmole

• At just 10 cm long, including a 3 cm tail, and weighing only about 10 g, the American shrew-mole is the tiniest mole in North America. Its tail is half the length of its head-body and covered with scales and coarse hairs, while its dense, dark gray to bluish-black fur hides a streamlined body built for tunneling.
• Unlike most fossorial mammals that push soil straight down, the shrew-mole digs with a lateral-stroke motion, a technique made possible by a uniquely shaped pectoral girdle where the clavicle joins the humerus instead of the scapula. Its humerus is a massive rectangular bone with a large surface for powerful digging muscles, while the pelvic girdle stays small and unchanged. This sideways digging creates shallow tunnel networks no deeper than 30 cm.
• A single shrew-mole can eat up to 1.4 times its body weight in just twelve hours, a staggering intake driven by its high metabolism and a short intestinal tract that digests food rapidly. This voracious appetite means newborns, weighing less than one gram, and adults forage for earthworms, insects, snails and even salamanders. Their ability to consume more than they weigh each day.
• American shrew-moles live in loosely organized groups of 12-15 individuals, a social structure rare among moles. Within these communities they communicate with a faint twittering sound audible only a few feet away, and they often share shallow surface runways that they create by alternating fore-paw thrusts at a 45° angle. while the shared tunnels provide ventilation holes that let fresh air reach sleeping chambers above ground.
• The shrew-mole's lungs can occupy more than 20 % of its body weight, an adaptation that lets it survive the low-oxygen, high-CO₂, and humid conditions of underground tunnels.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia
• Animal Diversity Web

At a glance

About the American Shrewmole

In the dense, damp undergrowth of the Pacific Northwest, the American shrewmole moves with frenetic purpose, its long, pointed snout twitching as it roots out insects and worms with an insatiable hunger. With each darting movement, its tiny, spade-like front paws excavate tunnels and burrows, weaving a hidden network of pathways through the forest floor. As it forages, the shrewmole's sleek, grey fur blends seamlessly into the shadows, rendering it all but invisible in its subterranean world.

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