Georgia’s least shrew records concentrate almost entirely along the coast, on barrier islands like Cumberland and Sapelo and around the marsh grasslands of Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. That fits the species well: it favors open grassy ground, and the dune meadows and maritime grasslands behind Georgia’s beaches give it exactly the dense, low cover it needs to move around unseen.
At barely a thumb’s length, this is one of the smallest mammals in the state, and it survives cold snaps in an unusual way for a shrew. Rather than going it alone the way most shrew species do, the least shrew often nests communally, huddling with several others through cold weather to conserve heat, and it’s even been found denning inside abandoned beehives, a habit that earned it the nickname bee shrew.
Georgia’s records run year-round with modest peaks in May and November, though with fewer than 150 total records the seasonal pattern here is thin. NatureServe ranks the species S5, Secure, in the state, consistent with a shrew that’s simply hard to detect rather than genuinely rare across its Coastal Plain and barrier-island range.
Full species profile
