Jeremy Shere

Behold the water shrew–the world’s smallest diving mammal.

Now, the fact that water shrews are about half the size of your average mouse does not make them particularly weird. It’s also not de-facto bizarre that the water shrew’s hyper-speed metabolism means that it can starve do death if it goes without eating for even a half hour.

What is unusual is that the tiny water shrew is one of the world’s most sophisticated and successful hunters–despite the fact that it often stalks small fish, insects and other prey underwater in near-total darkness.

Researchers at Vanderbilt U used an infra-red camera to capture footage of water shrews hunting in the dark. They found that the creatures use three highly adapted techniques to their advantage:

1. Water shrews can detect water movements caused by fleeing prey.
2. They use their whiskers to approximate the shape of their intended prey.
3. Coolest of all, water shrews sniff out their prey by blowing nose bubbles and then re-inhaling them through the nose.

Add the fact that water shrews are lightning fast–they can launch an attack in less than a 50th of a second–and we’re talking about a very dangerous predator, at least if you’re a water bug or small fish.

Check out water shrews in action here, on Vanderbilt’s “Exploration” website. It’s kind of like Jaws, except instead of a giant shark eating people you get a pipsqueak shrew eating minnows.

Source: Vanderbilt News