The smallest insectivores: coping with scarcities of energy and water

摘要

Shrews are the smallest of all mammals, the adult size of some species being as little as 1.9 g. They have been considered "primitive" because they possess a number of conservative morphological traits, especially in regard to dentition. They cope successfully, in part by selection of suitable microhabitats (as all animals must do to survive), and in part by employing characteristic mammalian solutions to the demands imposed by environmental conditions. Their physiological characteristics are related primarily to their extremely small body size and seem to be a result of the constraints that body size places on the available solutions.