What is this animal? Abby wants to know what everything in every book is, but I have no idea what this little guy is. I call it a rodent but she must be able to hear the uncertainty in my voice and just keeps asking over and over again. 
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8 comments:
I would call it an opossum because of the curled tail and the longer snout. But that's my best guess.
I'm baffled. We need a Google that searches the content of photos.
How about a Sengi? A Rufous Sengi looked similar. Or Elephant-shrew as they're also called, but sengi sounds a little better & cuter. And certainly cuter than rodent! :)
http://research.calacademy.org/research/bmammals/eshrews/images/rufous.jpg
http://www.peabody.yale.edu/exhibits/treeoflife/shrews_sub.html
Jencie asked for my expert opinion as a former biologist. I am relatively certain this little critter is a shrew.
Gary
Top image is a shrew and bottom image is a shrew chasing a mole. Glad she is getting a good education in mammology early on:) There are still lots of unidentified mammals in the world (I had a professor last semester whose whole job was to trap and identify mammals in South America's cloud forest) so perhaps with her curiosity she'll pursue that line of work:)
No wonder Abby was skeptical of your "rodent" explanation, Becca! Wikipedia says: "Although their external appearance is generally that of a long-nosed mouse, the shrews are not rodents and not closely related"
NOT rodents! Good catch, Abby!
Wow! Thanks everybody! Dan had originally suggested shrew but we really didn't know what one was so we were not confident. :-) You guys are great!
Gee, I thought a shrew was a mean minded woman - as in The Taming of the...:-)
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