Growth and postnatal development of the European water shrew

Growth, development and maintenance of American water shrews (Sorex palustris) in captivity

“…Body mass began to plateau by day 23 (Fig. 2), comparable to that of long-clawed shrews and European water shrews (Vogel 1972a;Michalak 1987;Nesterenko and Ohdachi 2001), but substantially later than that observed for vagrant and masked shrews (16-17 days; Hooven et al 1975;Forsyth 1976). These data suggest that larger bodied shrews require an extended period of growth to attain adult mass compared to the cohorts of smaller bodied species.…”

“…This mass is 14% greater than the mean (11.31 ± 0.35 g; n = 17) we recorded for recently weaned, wildcaught juvenile water shrews. It appears to be common for free-ranging and captive shrews to exhibit a decline in body mass following weaning (Vogel 1972a;Forsyth 1976;Michalak 1987), and a similar, albeit slight, drop in mass was also observed in individuals of our litter between days 26 and 31 (Fig. 2).…”

Behaviour of young Neomys fodiens in captivity

“…In each of the listed positions the animals usually opened their muzzles wide. Sometimes, they simultaneously hissed or when older (from about the 45th day) they loudly chirped ending with a hiss (compare the voices of young N. fodiens, Michalak, 1987). The animals vocalized or took warning body positions in the following situations: (1) the pushing of a sleeping or resting animal by another one, (2) mutual pushing of jumping or running pups, (3) the encounter of young in a tube joining the cages, (4) the entering of one animal into a nestbox already engaged by one or more pups, (5) importunate CM among the young.…”

“…During the first days of eating solid food (from the 28th day of life) (Michalak, 1987), very often the young were seen together eating meat from one food container. Later, more and more often they tore off pieces or from under the paws of the eating animal.…”

“…The observations of the behaviour of the animals harassed by people showed, however, that some models of threat behaviour had occurred much earlier than it was ascertained in relationships among animals. Young N. fodiens caught in the hand, kept in it or annoyed by some object (for example a stick) emitted warning hisses or chirping already from the 21st-22nd day (Michalak, 1987) and from the 27th-30th day took some of the warning body positions i.e. "stance", "tripedal", "upright" (Michalak, unpublished).…”