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Archive

"SHREW TALK" - Vol. 1, No. 01 - 10 June 1997

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The Shrew (ist's) Site: http://members.vienna.at/shrew Email: shrewbib@sorex.vienna.at ____________________________________________________________________

SHREW TALK - 10 June 1997 - Vol. 1, No. 1

Number of Recipients: xxx

Contents of this Issue

o Editorial

o Research

1. Shrew poison

2. Contaminated Sites

3. Soil ingestion by shrews

4. Scent glands

5. Traps and trapping design

6. Illustrating mammal skulls

7. Crocidura suaveolens

o Shrew-mateur

1. Basic shrew info #1

2. Basic shrew info #2

3. Can Shrews control vole infestion?

4. Shrews in the house #1

5. Shrews in the house #2

6. What do shrews eat?

o Shrew Bibliography: New Papers

o Whats New on the Shrew (ist's) Site?

o Shrew Talk Instructions

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o EDITORIAL

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Thank you all for your encouragement to get this shrew list going. I received a great number of inquiries lately. I will re-post them as time and space allows it. Please excuse if you have to wait a bit longer, and please remind me in case I forget to post your former inquiries. It looks like there is a lot of mail coming in. I hope that I can handle this! Let's give it a try...

Your's shrewly, Werner Haberl

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o RESEARCH

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1) From: "Mitenbuler, Jack" <JCMITENBULER@dowelanco.com> Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 08:43:31 -0500

My little project has reached the stage where I would like to acquire venom from the short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda. My partner suggests that acetone-dried venom might be suitable. So, I am interested in a source; however, I wonder if venom from a live source would be superior. For now, can you refer me to a source for venom?

Regards, Jack Mitenbuler

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2) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 13:18:55 GMT From: David Copplestone <copplest@liverpool.ac.uk> Subject: Review on coprophagy

Dr Werner Haberl

I read with interest your re-request for information about shrew coprophagy on behalf of Hirofumi Hirakawa, unfortunately I do not keep shrews in captivity and have therefore never seen this behaviour. However, I would be extremely interested in reading the short review on past studies on coprophagy. We live trap shrews from contaminated field sites (heavy metals, organic compounds and radionuclides) and are interested in the effects the pollutants have on these animals. Coprophagy is potentially of importance in the ingestion of pollutants and so any information you may have would be very useful.

Many thanks for your time.

David ---------------------------------- Dr David Copplestone Industrial Ecology Research Centre Jones Building School of Biological Sciences University of Liverpool PO Box 147 LIVERPOOL L69 3BX

Telephone: 0151 794 5298 Fax: 0151 794 5289 email: copplest@liv.ac.uk ___________________________

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3) Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 14:03:12 -0400 From: cwelsh@utk.edu (Chris Welsh) Subject: soil ingestion by shrews

I am often called upon to estimate contaminant intake by short-tailed shrews when evaluating hazardous waste sites. I have found few references regarding soil ingestion rates by shrews. As this may be an important exposure route, I would appreciate any thoughts on the matter or suggested references. Talmage and Walton (1993) estimate soil consumption of approximately 13% of diet. I believe this is an upper bound but have no information to suggest a reasonable range of values.

Christopher Welsh, Ph.D. School of Information Sciences, Univ. Tennessee Rm 304 Temple Court 804 Volunteer Blvd Knoxville, TN 37996-4330 Phone: 423-974-1829 Fax: 423-974-4967 ORNL: Phone: 423-241-5739 Fax: 423-576-2962 _______________________________________________________________________

4) Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 13:30:02 -0100 From: alice bair <ab002@ns1.wmc.car.md.us> To: shrewbib@sorex.vienna.at Subject: blarina brevicauda

So pleased to find your "shrew-ists" site on the internet.I am a professional outdoorsman with a question about blarina brevicauda.Has the scent produced by the flank glands of this shrew been isolated and identified? If so, what is the compound and its formula? Do you have any suggestions if it has not been isolated? Your help in this matter is very much appreciated.

Warmest regards, Ted Bair ab002@ns1.wmc.car.md.us ^ this is the number one _______________________________________________________________________

5) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 07:44:23 -0400 From: Marina Silva <msilva@UPEI.CA> Organization: University of P.E.I. Subject: Re: traps and trapping design

Dear Folks, I'm currently conducting a preliminary investigation of small mammals in the Prince Edward Island National Park (Canada). I'm using Sherman and pitfalls traps. We want to collect information on the abundance and diversity of small mammals on different habitats such as dunes, plantations (red pine), wetlands, etc. As bait, we are using a combination of peanut butter, oatmeal, vanilla, apples, oranges, and sardines. Our Sherman traps are placed 10 m apart and pitfall traps are placed at random. Although we do not have much information coming from previous works, we suspect that small mammal communities in each habitat should include between 6 to 8 different species. However, it seems that our Sherman and pitfall traps are not capturing any individuals. Is there anyone there that can give me some information or advice to solve our problems and being able to capture more individuals? Do we have to change our bait? Do we have to include snap traps in our design?

Marina Silva Department of Biology University of Prince Edward Island 550 University Avenue Charlottetown, P.E.I. Canada C1A 4P3 Tel. (902) 566-0602 Fax (902) 566-0740 E-mail: msilva@upei.ca _______________________________________________________________________

6) Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 15:50:13 -0400 From: Mary Etta Hight <hight@MARSHALL.EDU> Subject: Illustrating Mammal Skulls

Fellow mammalogists:

This is a plea for help and information from those of you who have used video imaging, digital cameras and other electronic techniques for illustrating mammal skulls for publication. In other words, we're seeking information about the usefulness of alternatives to standard photography or technical drawings for illustrations.

What equipment have you used?

Do the results produce images of satisfactory resolution for scientific publications?

Are such techniques equally good for very small mammals such as shrews and bats as for bears and beavers?

How steep is the learning curve?

Is there a good reference that would help one learn the ins and outs from scratch?

If you have experience you will tell us about, we would be most grateful.

Please reply directly to hight@marshall.edu Thank you.

Sue McLaren and Mary Etta Hight CMNH and Marshall University _______________________________________________________________________

7) Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 10:19:20 +0200 (MET DST) From: cosson@roazhon.inra.fr (Jean.Francois.Cosson) Subject: Shrew Bibliography Service

I have to write a review about Crocidura suaveolens in the French journal 'Arvicola'. So I would be very interrested to obtained a reference list on this topic from the "Shrew Bibliography". Is it possible ?

Also, I recently published a paper (in French): Origin and distribution of shrews, genus Crocidura, in Breton Islands JF Cosson, M Pascal & F Bioret Vie Milieu, 1996, 46:233-244

Jean-François Cosson Laboratoire de la Faune Sauvage, INRA

^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ Present adress:

Laboratoire Genome et population Universite Montpellier II CNRS UPR 9060 Place Eugene Bataillon C.C. 63 F-34095 Montpellier Cedex

tel.: (+33) 04 67 14 46 89 fax: (+33) 04 67 14 45 54 cosson@roazhon.inra.fr

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o SHREW-MATEUR

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1) Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 10:07:12 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald E. Moore" <demoorei@mailbox.syr.edu> Subject: SHREW info request

Hi folks! You have all requested information about shrews. I don't haveit at my fingertips, so you're going to have to do a little more work. However, I would suggest two excellent references if you haven't tried them already. The first is Walker's Mammals of the World (whichever is the latest edition in your local library), by Nowak and Paradiso. The newest editions have very up-to-date references to direct you to more specific information. The second is Mammals of North America: Ecology, Biology and Economics (sorry, I don't know if these three subjects are in order). It's a great book, by Chapman and Feldhamer (Johns Hopkins University Press), and I think shrews and moles are covered briefly. If shrews are covered, this book will be especially valuable for TIFFANY! A last one, which may be most available to you is Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. It is much more general though, and I have discovered a few errors in the information in the past (mostly due to translation errors from the original German). These books may be available from your local library, but are also available from your local zoo (their libraries are usually open to the public, but you usually need to use their books there, at specified times), or a local college. Good luck! Shrewdly, Don Moore, Syracuse University _______________________________________________________________________

2) Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 09:09:54 -0700 From: Leslie Carraway <carver@proaxis.com> Subject: Basic shrew info

Bruce Amendt:

I would suggest that your student try the following books:

Crowcroft, P. 1957. The life of the shrew. Max Reinhardt, London, 166 pp.

Churchfield, S. The natural history of shrews. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, New York, 178 pp.

Unfortunately for your student, both of these books are based primarily on shrews that occur in Europe and take the attitude that a shrew is a shrew no matter where it lives, what it eats, etc. In fact, there is quite a bit of variation among shrews. But, despite their drawbacks, you will not find better sources for just general types of information regarding shrews.

Leslie Carraway Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Nash Hall 104 Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331 _______________________________________________________________________

3) Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 13:42:40 -0700 From: Joe Chasko <jchasko@ns.net> Subject: Can Shrews control vole infestion?

We have a large garden that chronically suffers from vole damage, and wonder if shrews could be used to control them.

We would greatly appreciate answers to these questions:

1. Do shrews kill voles? 2. Could they be used for vole control? 3. If so, Do you know of a source for shrews in California?

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

Joe Chasko _______________________________________________________________________

4) Date: Mon, 26 May 97 04:25:05 UT From: "Victor Doherty" <vjdeidolon@msn.com> Subject: Shrew Inside My House

My dog found and killed a shrew that was in our basement. We have had problems with mice before and regularly set "Have-A-Heart" traps and transport them to distant locations. I feel bad about the loss of this shrew especially after viewing your photos. This shrew was approximately 6-7 cm in length, all gray in color and had tiny eyes less than 1.0 mm in diameter. Why would the shrew enter our house? If I catch another what should I do?

Sincerely,

Victor J. Doherty _______________________________________________________________________

5) From: Smkolbus@aol.com Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 20:34:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: shrew problem

We have been seeing many shrews in our home for the past several months. I was wondering if you had any ideas about how to get rid of them, as they seem to avoid mouse traps and poisons. Recently they have also been eluding our cat. They are not as big as the shrews that you have in your pictures on the internet. They are quite a bit smaller than mice. Any information you could share would be very helpful. If it is of any help as to which type of shrew they are, my home is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA.

Thank you for your help.

Stephanie Kolbus

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6) Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 14:44:53 -0400 From: Ian Andrews <IP_Andrews@compuserve.com> Subject: What do shrews eat

My cat has brought me a live and I think healthy young shrew. We have given it water to drink only so far. It seems happy and well in a tempary home, but we have considered feeding it, before realesing it after a few days.

WHAT SHOULD WE FEED IT.

Many thanks

Ian Andrews.

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o SHREW BIBLIOGRAPHY: New Papers

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ÒThe Shrew BibliographyÓ is a collection of more than 6000 references to research on the biology of the Soricidae (Insectivora, Mammalia) and small mammal ecology. More info: http://members.vienna.at/shrew/shrewbib.html

To announce your new research papers/books, please follow the instructions (separate fields with the character "#"):

Author(s)#Year#Title#Journal&Page No.#Abstract#Keywords#Address

*I* would appreciate receiving a reprint of your paper and/or a list of your publications to add to the bibliography.

NEW PAPERS/BOOKS:

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o WHAT'S NEW ON THE SHREW (ist's) SITE?

*********************************************************************** http://members.vienna.at/shrew

o Last Update: 12 June 1997

o Number of Visitors (Date: 9 June 1997): >3000

o Number of "Shrewists on E-mail": xxx _______________________________________________________________________

o New Pages: Archives of SHREW TALK: http://members.vienna.at/shrew/shrewtalk.html _______________________________________________________________________

o New Photos: none _______________________________________________________________________

o New Links: none _______________________________________________________________________

o General Modifications: The "Inquiry Bulletin Board" has been additioned by the SHREW TALK newsletter. The inquiry section will remain to contain "long-term" inquiries.

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o SHREW TALK INSTRUCTIONS

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TO POST TO THE GROUP

Reply to shrewbib@sorex.vienna.at - include the words "Shrew Talk" in the subject line.

For the present, this is also my personal e-mail. If you would like mail to go to Werner Haberl rather than to the group, DO NOT include the words "Shrew Talk" in the subject line and/or please indicate in the body of the letter that it's personal.

To be removed from the list, write to the same address and ask to be removed. ***********************************************************************

==================================================================

Dr. Werner Haberl Editor, SHREW TALK (http://members.vienna.at/shrew/shrewtalk.html) Hamburgerstr. 11, A-1050 Vienna, Austria

Email: shrewbib@sorex.vienna.at URL: http://members.vienna.at/shrew (The Shrew (ist's) Site)

The Shrew Bibliography (> 6000 references) (available on CD ROM) ==================================================================

This web site was created by

Dr. Werner Haberl. Address: Hamburgerstrasse 11, A-1050 Vienna, Austria.

E-mail: shrewbib@sorex.vienna.at

URL: http://members.vienna.at/shrew