Southern short-tailed shrews reach the western edge of their range in Texas, tucked into the moist leaf litter and dense ground cover of the state’s piney woods at Sam Houston and Davy Crockett national forests, exactly the kind of damp, wooded terrain this species needs to hunt insects and earthworms under cover.
Records spread across the year without one sharp peak: October through December hold 21 of the state’s 58, with smaller rises in February and April. That timing more likely reflects when people happen to turn up shrews in leaf litter than any real seasonal surge in activity, since these shrews stay active year-round underground and beneath cover.
NatureServe lists the species Apparently Secure (S4) in Texas, and with all 58 records coming from iNaturalist observers, this small predator, one of the few mammals with a mildly venomous bite used to subdue prey, ranks as only an occasional find, likely reflecting how easily a shrew this size stays hidden in dense East Texas ground cover rather than any real scarcity.
