North Dakota’s short-tailed shrew records cluster in the same prairie pothole wetlands: J. Clark Salyer, Chase Lake, and Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuges, where damp grass and thick, decaying plant litter along the water’s edge give this shrew the cover it depends on.
It spends most of its life below the surface, tunneling through soil and matted vegetation to hunt insects, worms, and other small invertebrates, and its saliva carries a mild toxin that helps it take down prey larger than itself.
Records here are rare compared to other mammals tracked in the state, and reports cluster from midsummer into fall. That’s likely tied to when small-mammal surveys run in these refuges, not a real shift in the shrew’s own activity. Short-tailed shrews don’t hibernate and stay active year-round under snow and leaf litter alike.
