Description
This shrew has a total length of 108 to 140 mm (4.3 to 5.5 inches), of which 18 to 32 mm (0.7 to 1.3 inches) is tail; it weighs 15 to 30 grams (0.5 to 1.1 ounces). The northern short-tailed shrew exhibits slight sexual dimorphism in size, with the male being slightly larger than the female. The dorsal fur is thick and velvety, and can be black, brownish black, or silvery gray, with the ventral fur being a bit lighter and grayer. The shrew molts from a summer coat, which is shorter and paler than the winter pelage in October and November, and back again sometime in February through July. The tail is quite short, amounting to less than 25% of total body length (as measured from tip of snout to base of tail) length. The species has one upper incisor, five unicuspids (simple teeth that cannot be easily identified), a premolar (the fourth), and three molars in the upper jaw. The lower dentition is identical, except only one is unicuspid. Three well-developed scent glands are present, one on each side of the animal and one ventral. The scent may be used for marking territories, though the shrew's sense of smell is thought to be poor.
Read more about this topic: Northern Short-tailed Shrew
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“It is possible—indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic—to give in advance a description of all ‘true’ logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)