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The taming of the shrew

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Martin Aaron Martin Aaron | 12:37 UK time, Monday, 19 July 2010

Tony Llewellyn sent in an amazing photo of a shrew and caterpillar that I just had to share with you.

I've no idea how he managed to capture this shot but here it is, for you all to marvel over:
shrew.jpg

Shrews as you can see from this photo are tiny creatures, only around two to three inches long and weighing between 0.2 - 0.4 ounces. To put that into perspective - a small apple weighs around 3.7 ounces.

Shrews have a very fast metabolism and as a result need to consume a staggering 200-300% of their own body weight each day in order to survive, so dieting is not an option.

Hardly surprising then that they only live for around two years - the poor things must be completely burnt out by then.

A shrew can literally starve to death within a few hours if it doesn't find food, so this plump caterpillar would have provided some vital calories.
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Shrews have very poor eyesight so rely on their long snout, acute sense of smell and excellent hearing to hunt down their prey.

Find out more about shrews on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Wildlife Finder.

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