Long-Tailed Shrew, Rock Shrew

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The Long-tailed shrew is a medium sized shrew with slat gray fur with blackish tips. It has light gray under parts and white feet. The tips of its teeth are a dark chestnut color. It has a body length of four and a half inches with a tail that is two inches long.  See Picture of Long-Tailed Shrew. 

Also known as the Rock Shrew, the long-tailed shrew uses its tail for balance when climbing rocks and slopes in deciduous and coniferous forests. They tunnel in rocky crevices between boulders and beneath moss covered logs and are found from New Brunswick, Canada south to Tennessee and North Carolina and in high elevations of the Great Smokey Mountains.

Adult long-tailed shrews breed from April to August and produce two to five young in nests made of finely shredded grasses and leaves. After eight days, the young leave the nest led by their mother, gripping the tail of the one in front in its mouth in search for food. They eat insects, spiders and centipedes extracted from rocky crevices.

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