Rhode Island’s short-tailed shrew records number 117 in the open databases, split fairly evenly between iNaturalist and GBIF entries. Most cluster in the state’s western uplands, where large public forests still hold the deep leaf litter and rotting logs this shrew needs to get by. The count says more about where people go looking than about how many shrews are actually working the woods.
A tunnel dweller with a venomous bite
This is one of only a few venomous mammals in North America. Its bite delivers a toxin from glands near the lower jaw that can stall an earthworm, snail, or insect long enough to eat it alive, and it’s strong enough to slow down prey several times the shrew’s own small size. A short-tailed shrew burns through energy so fast it has to eat close to its own body weight most days, so it digs its own shallow tunnels through soil and leaf duff and just as often borrows the runways other small mammals already dug. In Rhode Island, that kind of cover holds up best in mature interior forest like the oak and pine stands at Arcadia, Big River, and George Washington Management Areas, not in mowed lawns or open farmland.
Recorded most months, quiet in February
Records turn up in every month except February, rise through the summer, and peak in October before tapering into early winter. The shrew doesn’t hibernate and stays active through the coldest weeks, so that February gap probably reflects fewer people out in the woods that month rather than any real pause in what’s happening under the leaf litter.
Status in Rhode Island
The short-tailed shrew is native to Rhode Island, and NatureServe ranks it S5, secure in the state. It isn’t listed as introduced or of conservation concern here, and it should hold its ground as long as the state’s larger forest blocks stay intact.
