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The framing of the shrew: California students photograph mammal never caught on film
Last edited Sun Jan 26, 2025, 03:22 PM - Edit history (1)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/26/mount-lyell-shrew-california-photographThree young scientists set traps to capture and film species of special concern in move that can help conserve the shrew
In a 7,000ft-high marshy spot in the cold, rugged eastern Sierra mountains, two groups of mammals scurried around at night. One was going about their normal nocturnal routine of hunting worms. The other was hoping for a glimpse of an elusive creature: the Mount Lyell shrew, the only known California mammal never photographed alive.
The three young student scientists faced a tight timeline. They baited 150 pitfall traps – small cups dug into the earth to catch wandering creatures – with cat food and mealworms and monitored them across a 600ft area, checking each trap every two hours for any signs of their goal. They slept no more than two hours at a time. Shrews have such a fast metabolism that they die in traps quickly, one of the reasons this species had never been photographed or studied live.
Despite initial skepticism, they caught five shrews within the first 24 hours, working mostly during the night and early morning. They filmed and photographed the tiny creatures, and clipped tiny flaps of skin from the animals’ ears for genetic testing later to confirm they’d caught the right species.
When he held one, Prakrit Jain, a 20-year-old student at University of California, Berkeley, and intern at the California Academy of Sciences, noticed how remarkably small and light the animals were. Less than 4in long, the lightest shrew was just a gram-and-a-half – about the weight of two paper clips. “It was very different from holding a mouse or a hamster,” he says. “These shrews are almost the size of an insect.”
...
The three young student scientists faced a tight timeline. They baited 150 pitfall traps – small cups dug into the earth to catch wandering creatures – with cat food and mealworms and monitored them across a 600ft area, checking each trap every two hours for any signs of their goal. They slept no more than two hours at a time. Shrews have such a fast metabolism that they die in traps quickly, one of the reasons this species had never been photographed or studied live.
Despite initial skepticism, they caught five shrews within the first 24 hours, working mostly during the night and early morning. They filmed and photographed the tiny creatures, and clipped tiny flaps of skin from the animals’ ears for genetic testing later to confirm they’d caught the right species.
When he held one, Prakrit Jain, a 20-year-old student at University of California, Berkeley, and intern at the California Academy of Sciences, noticed how remarkably small and light the animals were. Less than 4in long, the lightest shrew was just a gram-and-a-half – about the weight of two paper clips. “It was very different from holding a mouse or a hamster,” he says. “These shrews are almost the size of an insect.”
...