National Museum of Natural Science

The fur is light gray, the eyes are small, the ears are round, and the incisors are white at the tips. The snout is slender and protruding and the surrounding whiskers are long and distinctive. They appear similar to the more well-known Asian house shrew but smaller. Around 2/3 of the tail closest to the base has bristles. The Taiwanese gray shrew is distributed in low-elevation plains to medium-elevation mountainous areas and is active on the ground in forests, in grasslands, and on farmland. It feeds on small invertebrates such as insects, centipedes, and earthworms in the soil just below the surface.

Text/Chen Yan-Jun, Chen Mu-Xuan

Photo/Huang Xiao-Ting

Taiwanese gray shrew