the forest-shrew is our most frequent native shrew. it lives in the entire restrained Europe with exception of Ireland and occurs in a belt, that stretches over the whole northern Asia, as far as to Japan.
Characteristics The forest-shrew listened in into the subfamily of the red-tooth-shrews (shrews, water-shrew). One can distinguish these through the absence of eyelash-bristles from the white-tooth-shrews (house-shrew) at the tail. The forest-shrew is 6,5-8,5 cm long. The tail is 3,5-5 cm long. The coloring of the fur is oberseits brown until dark brown, the underside is gray.
Way of life The forest-shrew prefers moist forests and swamp-meadows, occurs however also in dry areas. it either digs own walks under moss and foliage for herself or populated mouse-constructions. During mice and forest-shrews normally each other avoids, it can occur in the winter that one finds it in a nest together with dwarf-mice.
The individually living forest-shrew is a twilight-animal admittedly mainly, can also frequently be observed on the day, however. it lives from different invertebrates, like earthworms and insects. More frequently than its relatives, it digs in the ground with the muzzle or shovels relaxed earth with the front-legs away.
Reproduction The reproductive-time of the forest-shrew is between April and Octobers. Three can - until four times in the year, after a Tragzeit of 20 days, 5-10 nude kids was born. This extremely fast growing babies gets only from the 9. Life-day hair, and only after 3 weeks, shortly before they become independent, and the nest leaves, the eyes open.
Further types There are still 2 further red-tooth-shrews of the type Sorex in Central Europe:
1. Alps-shrew (Sorex alpinus). it lives in Europe's mountains and occurs as far as into the Harz northward. it is colored equally gray-black on the waiter and underside and has a body-long tail. Head and torso are 6-7,5 cm long.
2. Dwarf-shrew (S). minutus. it is only 5-6 cm long and has a shorter, 3-4,5 cm long tail. On the upper side, it is brown and below gray. it has a similar way of life like the forest-shrew, is however essentially rarer.
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