The Glacier Bay water shrew (Sorex alaskanus) is a species of mammal in the family Soricidae. It is endemic to Alaska in the United States. It can swim underwater, and when it stops swimming, air trapped in its fur lets it float back up to the surface. Owing to small hairs on its feet, the water shrew can run across the water. Its fur is water resistant, although if it does get wet it returns to shore to dry itself with its hind feet. It eats aquatic fly nymphs and terrestrial invertebrates.
Famous quotes containing the words glacier, bay and/or water:
““The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)