Behavior
Blarina brevicauda is a semi-fossorial animal meaning that it spends the majority of its time underground . The shrews use their front feet to dig tunnels underground for shelter that often will resemble a honeycomb complex . Despite living underground, they have been known to climb trees and other structures in the short bouts of time spent on the surface . Other shrews spend more time above ground than does the northern short-tailed shrew, which prefers to tunnel along below ground, through the leaf litter, or at the snow/ground interface. Bouts of frenzied activity, lasting about five minutes, are followed by longer periods of resting, with the total active time amounting to only 16% of a 24-hour day. This animal is capable of digging at a rate of 2.5 cm/min, in-between resting.
The shrews live in underground nests that are spherical in shape. These nests are often lined with the fur of meadow voles . The shrew constructs a nest up to 20 cm (8 in) in diameter underground or underneath a log. This nest is kept clean, with wastes deposited outside the nest in a latrine area. Other parts of the burrow system are used for food storage.
B. brevicauda has a high resting metabolic rate with their activity level is tied to the weather . The animals are most active on cloudy days as opposed to rainy or sunny days . The northern short-tailed shrew is widely considered solitary and unsocial which is likely due to its territorial nature . Pairs of shrews introduced to a cage simultaneously coexisted for less than four months before one killed the other, and a new shrew placed in a cage containing an already established shrew is killed within a few hours.
Another interesting aspect of B. brevicauda behaviour is their use of echolocation. The eyesight of the northern short-tailed shrew is particularly poor and they must accordingly rely on other sensory methods to succeed . The animals have strong olfactory senses and are able to use echolocation . They use echolocation for exploration of their environment and tunnel building .
Read more about this topic: Northern Short-tailed Shrew
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“The inability to control our children’s behavior feels the same as not being able to control it in ourselves. And the fact is that primitive behavior in children does unleash primitive behavior in mothers. That’s what frightens mothers most. For young children, even when out of control, do not have the power to destroy their mothers, but mothers who are out of control feel that they may destroy their children.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“Children, randomly at first, hit upon something sooner or later that is their mother’s and/or father’s Achilles’ heel, a kind of behavior that especially upsets, offends, irritates or embarrasses them. One parent dislikes name-calling, another teasing...another bathroom jokes. For the parents, this behavior my have ties back to their childhood, many have been something not allowed, forbidden, and when it appears in the child, it causes high-voltage reaction in the parent.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)
“The ease with which problems are understood and solved on paper, in books and magazine articles, is never matched by the reality of the mother’s experience. . . . Her child’s behavior often does not follow the storybook version. Her own feelings don’t match the way she has been told she ought to feel. . . . There is something wrong with either her child or her, she thinks. Either way, she accepts the blame and guilt.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)