- Also called:
- sengi
elephant shrew
-
What is an elephant shrew?
The elephant shrew, from the order Macroscelidea, is a rat-sized African mammal named for its long, tapered snout elephant shrew. They have slim bodies, slender limbs, and long hind legs. Despite resembling shrews, they are not insectivores elephant shrew.
Elephant shrews are active during the day and live on the ground elephant shrew. They have large ears and eyes and construct paths, running swiftly on their toes along them when alarmed. They forage for small insects, other arthropods, and earthworms, using their paws and snout to turn over leaf litter elephant shrew.
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What does an elephant shrew look like?
The elephant shrew, of the order Macroscelidea, is a rat-sized African mammal named for its long, tapered, flexible snout (proboscis). They have slim bodies, slender limbs, and very long hind legs and feet. Their ears and eyes are large, and they are active during the day.
The checkered elephant shrew (Rhynchocyon cirnei) can weigh about 1.1 pounds, with a body 9 to 12 inches long and a slightly shorter tail. Their fur is short, stiff, and glossy, patterned with chestnut and buff. Other species have soft, dense fur ranging from grayish brown to dark brown, in tones usually matching the soil where they live.
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Where do elephant shrews live?
Elephant shrews, also known as sengis, are rat-sized African mammals with a long, flexible snout. They are terrestrial animals active during the day, foraging for small insects and arthropods.
Their habitat varies by species:
- Checkered elephant shrews live only in East Africa, in tropical forests with well-drained soils and leaf litter.
- Giant elephant shrews inhabit forested areas within the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania.
- Smaller species are found in the uplands of southern, eastern, and extreme northwestern Africa, including dry forests, scrub, savannas, open country, semiarid and rocky habitats, and sandy plains.
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What do elephant shrews eat?
Elephant shrews, also called sengis, are rat-sized African mammals with a long, tapered snout. Despite resembling shrews, they are not insectivores and belong to the order Macroscelidea.
These terrestrial creatures are active during the day, using their paws and constantly moving proboscis to forage for prey along constructed and maintained pathways. Their diet consists of small insects, especially ants and termites, other arthropods, and earthworms.
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How are elephant shrews different from true shrews or elephants?
Elephant shrews, of the order Macroscelidea, are rat-sized African mammals with a long, flexible snout, or proboscis. Though they resemble true shrews, they are not insectivores. Molecular data suggests they are related to aardvarks, elephants, hyraxes, and sirenians. They have slim bodies, slender limbs, and long hind legs and feet. Active during the day, they forage for small insects and arthropods, using their paws and proboscis to search leaf litter and soil.
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How do elephant shrews survive in the wild?
Elephant shrews, native to Africa, are rat-sized mammals with a long, flexible snout. Active during the day, they forage for small insects, arthropods, and earthworms by using their paws and constantly moving proboscis to turn over leaf litter and soil.
When alarmed, they run swiftly on their toes along maintained paths, sometimes leaping over obstacles. They build nests out of dry leaves or will rest and den in burrows, rock crevices, depressions in the ground, and termite mounds, beneath fallen tree trunks, among tree roots, or in dense underbrush.
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elephant shrew, (order Macroscelidea), any of approximately 20 species of rat-sized African mammals named for their long, tapered, and flexible snout (proboscis). All have slim bodies, slender limbs, and very long hind legs and feet. Although they resemble shrews, they are not insectivores but constitute the mammalian order Macroscelidea.
Elephant shrews are terrestrial and are active during the day. Their ears and eyes are large, and, when alarmed, they run on their toes swiftly along paths they construct and maintain, sometimes leaping over obstacles. When foraging, they move along the pathways, using their paws and the constantly moving proboscis to turn over leaf litter and soil in search of prey, which consists of small insects (especially ants and termites), other arthropods, and earthworms. Gestation lasts two months, and litters contain one or two well-developed young.
Checkered elephant shrews (Rhynchocyon cirnei) weigh about half a kilogram (1.1 pounds), with a body 23 to 31 cm (9 to 12 inches) long and a slightly shorter tail (18 to 25 cm). The fur is short, stiff, and glossy. Upperparts may be patterned with chestnut and buff; they may be orange on the forequarters, changing to dark red and then black on the rump, or uniformly dark amber with a shiny golden rump. The bicoloured tail is finely haired and appears bare. These elegant long-legged animals are similar in body form to small forest antelopes (see dik-dik; duiker). They live only in East Africa, where they inhabit tropical forests (including deciduous lowland and montane forests) with well-drained soils and carpets of leaf litter. Nests are made of dry leaves on the open forest floor.
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The largest species, the giant elephant shrew (R. udzungwensis), weighs about 0.7 kg (1.5 pounds) and inhabits two forested areas within the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania.
The smaller species weigh 30 to 280 grams, with bodies 9 to 22 cm long and shorter tails of 8 to 18 cm. The soft, dense fur ranges from grayish brown to dark brown, in tones usually matching the soil where they live. They are found in the uplands of southern, eastern, and extreme northwestern Africa, inhabiting dry forests and scrub, savannas, open country covered by sparse shrubs or grass, semiarid and rocky habitats, and sandy, sparsely vegetated plains. They rest and den in burrows, rock crevices, depressions in the ground, and termite mounds, beneath fallen tree trunks, among tree roots, or in dense underbrush.
In addition to the checkered elephant shrews, the family Macroscelididae also includes the long-eared elephant shrews (genus Elephantulus), the round-eared sengis (Macroscelides proboscideus, M. flavicaudatus, and M. micus), and the four-toed elephant shrew (Petrodromus tetradactylus); those three genera are classified together in a subfamily separate from Rhynchocyon. Macroscelididae is the only family in the order Macroscelidea. There are eight extinct genera, some of which had teeth similar to antelopes’ and were probably herbivores. The evolutionary history of elephant shrews is confined to Africa and dates to the Late Eocene (41.3 to 33.9 million years ago). Their closest relatives were thought to be tree shrews and insectivores, but since the 1950s elephant shrews have been recognized as a distinct order. They are possibly related to rabbits and rodents, although molecular data suggest that they may be more closely related to an ancient group that gave rise to the aardvarks, elephants, hyraxes, and sirenians.