Photo via Twitter
In conjunction with World Wildlife Day today (March 3rd), we highlighted eight endangered species Malaysia is home to, and one of them is the black shrew.
If you didn’t already know, shrews are small, insectivorous mammals resembling a mouse, with a long pointed snout and tiny eyes.
You probably wouldn’t think much of them, but what you may find interesting about the black shrew is that it is native to Malaysia and Borneo, and that there’s a possibility that they no longer exist!
It is the smallest shrew of its kind and it’s listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species due to habitat loss and a restricted range.
In fact, the black shrew is so rare that it has only been seen a handful of times.
There is no official record of its size, but witnesses have estimated it to be around 20 to 100mm in length.
Only one recorded specimen was found around Mount Kinabalu in Sabah more than a decade ago, and nobody knows whether this creature has become extinct or if it still occupies a small area there.
We can only hope that it still exists, but to its benefit, Sabah’s environment is better protected than most other areas in Malaysia.
Find out what you can do to help protect our endangered species from extinction,
here.
by Kyle Roshen Jacob
