Life is tough for a pygmy shrew in Ireland

There was a corpse on the path in front of me. A very small corpse. 

A closer look revealed a short tail and a pointed face with tiny eyes. A pygmy shrew that had died quite recently for no obvious reason. Pygmy shrews are quite common in a variety of habitats in Ireland but they’re shy creatures that seldom venture far from cover so they’re not seen that often and, until you see them, it’s hard to realise how small they really are. On average an adult weighs 5 or 6 grams. In comparison an adult mouse, whether it’s a wood mouse or a house mouse, will be three to four times heavier.

This gives the pygmy shrew the uncontested title of smallest mammal in Ireland. It’s not, however, the smallest mammal in the world. That honour may belong to a bat that was discovered in 1973 in Thailand called Kitti’s hog-nosed bat, also known as the bumblebee bat because it’s the size of a large bee. Although it’s the smallest mammal by size the smallest by weight is the Etruscan shrew which averages 1.8 grams. They live in southern Europe and Asia and North Africa.