A tiny shrew of the Mesoamerican highlands, the Dark Mexican Broad-clawed Shrew belongs to a group of broad-clawed shrews that has undergone remarkable diversification in the mountains of Mexico and Central America. Geographical isolation means that each mountain massif often holds its own exclusive species. It lives hidden among the damp leaf litter and moss on the high-altitude cloud-forest floor, a cool, constantly humid environment on which it entirely depends due to the high metabolic rate typical of all shrews. Split between southern Mexico and Guatemala, its home range is so small and fragmented that it ranks among the least understood Mesoamerican mammals and is in urgent need of study.
A tiny shrew-like mammal with greyish-brown fur on the back and a slightly paler, greyish underside from which it gets part of its common name. It has a long, flexible snout and front feet with relatively broad claws adapted for digging through leaf litter. The Dark Mexican Broad-clawed Shrew is easily confused with other broad-clawed shrews of the Mesoamerican mountains; given the group's recent diversification in the region, reliable separation often requires cranial or genetic analysis.
Tiny track, barely 1 cm, rarely visible except on very fine substrate. Droppings tiny and dark, just a few millimetres long, with insect chitin fragments visible under magnification, left scattered along its runways under the damp leaf litter. It builds spherical nests of grass and moss in hollows beneath fallen logs or roots in the cloud forest. Its presence is betrayed by a high-pitched, rapid squeak uttered when communicating or threatened.
High-altitude cloud forest with damp leaf litter and abundant moss on the ground, generally above 1500 m altitude. Distributed across mountain areas of Chiapas in southern Mexico and Guatemala, restricted to a small, fragmented area split between different mountain massifs.
Insectivorous, feeding on insects, earthworms and other invertebrates in the damp cloud-forest soil. It captures prey driven by a very high metabolic rate that forces it to feed with enormous frequency.
Active continuously in short bursts throughout the day and night due to its very high metabolic rate, with generally solitary and territorial behaviour. Its strong reliance on the constant moisture of the cloud forest limits its ability to move between habitat fragments separated by drier areas.
Populations are considered in marked decline due to the ongoing loss of the cloud forest on which it strictly depends. This mountain ecosystem is already small and fragmented, and continues to lose surface area to deforestation.
Deforestación and fragmentation of the cloud forest through agricultural and livestock expansion. Climate change threatens to shift the humidity conditions necessary for this ecosystem higher up the mountains, presenting an especially grave risk for a species with such a small home range.
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