The North American least shrew ranks among the smallest mammals in Kansas, rarely stretching past three inches nose to tail. Unlike most shrews, which live alone and fight off their own kind, this one often nests in small groups, huddling together for warmth and occasionally denning inside abandoned beehives, a habit that earned it the nickname bee shrew.
Kansas holds just 21 iNaturalist records for the species, all research-grade sightings rather than museum specimens, so what’s mapped here traces observer effort more than the shrew’s real numbers. Records cluster in western Kansas, especially around Cimarron National Grassland and nearby playa wetlands, shortgrass country cut by shallow seasonal ponds that shelter the moist microhabitats this shrew needs. Sightings show two loose peaks, in January and again from October into November, an odd split that likely says more about when people happen to be out looking than about the shrew’s actual activity.
Full species profile
