Merriam’s shrew breaks the usual shrew pattern: instead of damp streamside cover, it lives in dry sagebrush and grassland, slipping through burrow runways left by voles and pocket gophers rather than digging its own. Arizona has just one record of it since 2000, an iNaturalist observation from Coconino National Forest on the Colorado Plateau, where patches of open, semi-arid ground suit that habit.
That single record dates back to 2017, a sign of how easily a shrew this small and secretive goes undetected even where it’s genuinely present, since it stays active hunting insects nearly around the clock rather than settling into a single daily pattern that would make it easier to catch on camera.
Full species profile
