Michigan has no least shrew records dated 2000 to 2026. The species’ documented history in the state rests on older specimens, most of them from Washtenaw and Livingston counties in the southeast, where university field stations such as the Edwin S. George Reserve trapped small mammals for decades and few other corners of the state got that kind of sustained attention.
A shrew this small lives under leaf litter and grass and stays active all winter beneath the snow, so it almost never turns up without a trap line.
NatureServe ranks the species S1, critically imperiled, in Michigan, near the northern edge of its range. Whether it’s truly that scarce or simply under-sampled outside the field-station belt is an open question the current record can’t answer.
Full species profile
