Least Shrew (Cryptotis parva)

County List:

Rule:

Nonforested Landscapes

      Grass
      or Upland Brush
      or Savanna
      or Fields/Pasture

Habitat List:

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Literature:

Most shrews prefer moist or even wet habitats, but this species is an exception, favoring dry upland areas instead. The least shrew is most common in meadows, old fields, weedy areas, and along fencerows; a dense cover of grasses and/or herbaceous plants is always present. This shrew rarely visits woodlands or damp lowlands.

The most important foods are adult insects, caterpillars, beetle larvae, and earthworms but this insectivore also takes centipedes, slugs, and sowbugs.

Habitat: Open grassy areas with or without scattered brush, salt marshes, woodland edges.

Special Habitat Requirements: Loose soils for tunnels (often uses runways of larger mice and shrews).

Habitat Preferences: The least shrew is reported from a variety of open and semi-open environments. It can be chiefly expected in grasslands and fallow fields which contain stands of annual and perennial grasses and forbs. It also thrives in marsh, shoreline areas, orchards, brushy edges of woods, shrubby fencerows, and even in moist woods. Efforts have been made to trap these small insectivores in all of the above Michigan habitats, especially in grassy areas, where many of the small number of Michigan specimens have been obtained.