Pastor’s Notes: Northern Short Tailed Shrew

Northern Short-tailed Shrews are small mammals that apparently look a bit like baby moles to many people as I am constantly having people describe them to me in that fashion. Metabolic rates are extremely high and they may consume up to twice their weight in food on a daily basis. In their never-ending search for food they are highly active for several minutes periods then relax for periods of 20 to 25 minutes. In designing an animal that needs to eat so much and so frequently God made them insectivorous and carnivorous and He gave them some special talents. Poisonous saliva enables them to kill mice and even larger prey and to paralyze and store invertebrates such as snails alive for later consumption. God has provided them with a form of echolocation which enables them to move through tunnels and darkened landscapes via emitting a series of ultrasonic “clicks” that bounce back to alert the shrew to living and nonliving objects around them. The tiny shrew has a place in God’s plan and is testimony to His provision. Gen 1:31 says “and God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”