A Mount Lyell shrew has just been photographed alive | Hacker News Reader

A Mount Lyell shrew has just been photographed alive

sfgate.com

125 pointsnithinj38 comments

Mount Lyell shrew

Image: https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_236362254...

Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lyell_shrew

Cute little critter!

Looking at that Wikipedia page, I didn't realize there were multiple "grading" systems for conservation risk. Interesting that two different systems have two different risk assessments for the same animal.

Shrews are cute but MEAN.

A few years ago we had a couple of feet of snow in a day. As I was snow blowing the driveway, I noticed all these little tunnels on the edge that was cut off by the side of the blower.

Then I saw a tiny little animal. I thought he was a mole. So I took my glove off and picked him up, as a good hillbilly would do.

That thing bit me like fifteen times up my thumb before I could react to yeet him across the yard.

Lesson learned.

That doesn’t sound mean. It sounds like you shouldn’t pick up a wild animal.

The shrew had to assume you were going to eat it, and it did what it needed to do to escape.

I think you cane safely assume he meant “fierce”. Or you know, insist on strict semantic meaning.

Didn't you ever watch "The Killer Shrews"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killer_Shrews

An MST3K favorite.

I had a northern short tailed shrew running around my basement. After luckily live catching it (and getting the correct id), I also discovered that they are mildly venomous. Go figure.

Wish it hadn't found a way into the house, as I would have liked to have it keep clearing pests out of my yard. It got dropped off else where quickly, after a snack.

>Shrews are cute but MEAN.

There is a reason that unpleasant women are called shrews[1], for example as in The Taming of the Shrew[2].

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shrew

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taming_of_the_Shrew

Are these the same critters that squirls have been hunting and eating? Big thing about that with the squirls catching them, and killing them "with a bite to the neck" just like bigger preditors, and then chowing down.It was somewhere over California way, and there were researchers studying the systematic hunting by squirls, so these shrews days might be numbered, even after surviving extinction. I used to get $1 for a squirl tail when I was a kid, sold them at the store, and used the money for gas for boat and boxes of shells.....wonder what a shrew is worth:).kidding, kidding..ok half kidding....anybody actualy know?

Fyi, squirrels

The recent report was of some California squirrels eating voles.

Well yeah imagine some giant noisy machine digging you out and then trying to pick you up most likely to eat you.

You picked up a wild animal and it fought for its survival.

That's not evidence of being mean but alive and interested in staying that way.

I had a similar experience with a common squirrel that found its way into a friend's kitchen. It's a story about a stupid human treating a wild animal as his pet cat and getting holes in his hand in the process, not how squirrels are mean.

Thank you! I have no patience for articles headlined with “Picture of rare <blank> taken!” that do not lead with the picture. If I want to read more about it, I will, but lead with the damn image. I know I know, the whole point is to show me ads, etc. Still gonna fart my fart into the wind I guess.

That picture at the beginning is a high quality troll, I spent ages looking at it before I read the caption: "The team set up traps in vegetation areas like this one to capture Mount Lyell shrews."

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

That's got to be a typo...

Probably 20-30 grams. Average lab mouse is around that weight and length [1]

[1] https://www.jax.org/jax-mice-and-services/strain-data-sheet-...

The reason they're never seen alive is because they're actually balloon animals.

Must be, a typical hummingbird weighs more than that (4g).

No typo apparently...

>Editor's note: This story was corrected at 12:15 p.m., Jan. 17, to clarify that the shrews weigh 2 to 3 grams, according to the researchers' measurements.

Wikipedia says:

The shrew is between 8.9 and 10 centimetres (3.5 and 3.9 in) long[4] and weighs 4–5 grams (0.14–0.18 oz).[5] It has 32 teeth.[4]

Must be a mistake on both?!? No way its got less that 5 ccs of blood in a 9-10 cm long body.

> No way its got less that 5 ccs of blood in a 9-10 cm long body.

Scaling that body up by a factor of 10 would get you 5 × 10³ = 5,000 ccs of blood in a 90-100 cm long body.

That’s 5 liter. We also have (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_volume) “A typical adult has a blood volume of approximately 5 liters”, and the typical adult is quite a bit taller than 90-100 cm.

Look up Etruscan shrew. They weigh less than 2g on avg.

Yup, they used civilized units instead of the usual feudal ones.

According to other Wikipedia articles (https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorex_lyelli), almost half of that length is the tail, so that might explain it. Also, I assume most of the "bulk" you see in the photos is fur (which a small mammal in a harsh climate needs a lot of for insulation).

Here’s a video of the expedition:

https://youtu.be/Jd2CdraSqt0?si=7xcYlM_GH4-1uw_k

His channel has lots of other amazing videos documenting creatures, mostly cold blooded. The level of knowledge imparted is very high, not just another wildlife show. Definitely worth watching.

came here to post this exact video!

I'm not an expert biologist by any means, but I do believe that this shrew - this critter, if you will - fulfills all the criteria of being just a little guy or girl.

Very well done, always nice to see non (not yet?) professional scientists contribute :)

This reminds me I've been meaning to set up a moth trap.

Based on the headline i assumed it was endangered but appearently not, its just difficult to photograph.

Moose Peterson talks about “scientific level” wildlife photography in most of this presentation, https://youtu.be/QwfB2xQ0uVc?si=slhpQqeFGB1sBeEB

Seriously a title like that and it's not Bigfoot?

With the timeline we're in, it's only a matter of time?

I want to believe

A shrew that has been seen by few has now been seen by more…

That should be the title, not god damn Big Foot level anticipation.

"Shrewd mammal evaded photography for decades."

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