Let me introduce you to Rodney. Rodney is a pygmy shrew and as such he belongs to the smallest mammalian species in The British Isles. When fully grown, a pygmy shrew will measure around two inches in length - excluding the tail which is about 1.4 inches in length.
The life of a healthy pygmy shrew is quite short - on average fifteen months or so. In that time, a normal female may successfully bear five litters - containing two to eight young.
Rodney eats seeds and small insects and lives in a burrow under an old tree stump. The burrow was created by another rodent a couple of years ago. Rodney's sleeping habits are different from our own. He will be busily active for twenty minutes and then asleep for the next twenty minutes. This pattern continues throughout the day. He has a very high metabolic rate.
Though not as common as the common shrew which is significantly bigger, pygmy shrews are believed to be quite widespread in The British Isles though they have never been spotted in either The Shetland Isles or The Scilly Isles. It should be noted that accurate assessment of pygmy shrew populations are very hard to make and summaries are often based upon assumptions and mathematical extrapolations.
In my life I have seen wild elephants, white rhinos, black bears, hoary marmots, snakes, fruit bats and killer whales but I have never seen a pygmy shrew. They may often be very close but so tiny and so well-concealed that nearby humans just don't spot them.
Though the pygmy shrew is the smallest mammal in Britain, the smallest known mammal in the world is about half the size of the pygmy shrew. It is the bumblebee bat which is also known as the Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bat. Weighing in at 0.07 ounces the tiny species can be found in the borderland territory between Thailand and Burma.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/YOGyqVh