Their other organs also lose mass and their spines get shorter. The increase in the population of domestic and feral cats in Ireland could be having an adverse effect on pygmy shrew numbers here especially in more rural locations. The female greater white toothed shrew is less aggressive during the breeding season and sometimes allows the male to remain in the nest with the young while she leaves to forage so both male and female will show their offspring parental concern.
The pygmy shrew requires dense vegetation for cover from its many predators and to provide adequate foraging areas for insects. The mortality of young pygmy shrews is very high. The use of refection to gain all available nutrients from their food is regularly practiced.

Due to this protection, shrews may not be trapped without a licence and, when trapping for other small mammals, precautions are necessary to minimise the chances of death or damage to shrews. The main predators of shrews are This article is about the European shrew species.

The pygmy shrew is the most widely distributed shrew species found in Europe and is also the most ancient, with a fossil record dating back to the early Pliocene, between 5.3 and 3.6 million years ago.

Females give birth to an average of six young per litter with two litters per year being the norm. The young are weaned and independent within 22 to 25 days.Young shrews often form a caravan behind their mother, each carrying the tail of its sibling in front with its mouth.
They are skilled hunters and will patrol their home ranges every three to four hours along regularly used pathways within vegetation, if they leave these pathways they become more hesitant and must feel their way along using their long whiskers guided by their keen sense of smell as their vision and hearing senses are so poor. If a nest is disturbed the mother will lead her offspring to a new site by caravanning which is when each shrew grasps the tail of the shrew in front forming a chain which is a behavior not associated with the pygmy shrew species.The pygmy shrew species has been present on the European continent for 2 million years and are now widespread throughout northern Europe and extend to the Artic coast of eastern Russia, they are absent from Iceland, southern Spain and the middle east. Within two weeks of birth the young shrew’s can have gained ten times their original body weight.

Body colouration is of a darkish brown tint with a lighter underbelly with the tail being more sparsely covered in fur. Because of their high metabolic rate a pygmy shrew will starve to death within four hours if it is unable to feed.

The importance of the pygmy shrew to the proper functioning of the Irish ecosystem has now been recognized as it is a protected species under national law and international convention.

Monitoring the pine marten, Ireland's rarest native mammal species The pine marten in Ireland.

Legislation and Licensing Legislation Shrews are protected under the following legislation. white-toothed shrew was discovered in the Republic of Ireland in 2008, and is considered to be an introduced non-native species. The greater white-toothed shrew has a more grey or reddish brown colouration on the sides and back which turns to a more yellowish colour on the undersides. The pygmy shrew is often mistaken for a mouse as it also has long whiskers, short ears and small eyes, however the main distinguishing features are the shrew’s more velvet like fur, smaller body size and a lightly furred tail. The pygmy shrew is present throughout the British Isles and, importantly, it is the only shrew species present on the Isle of M… An individual pygmy shrew’s home range will be quite small in size especially if it is occupying the preferred habitat type of open grassland areas which supply good cover and foraging sites, such ranges generally measure from 200 m2 up to 1,500 m2. When spring arrives, they grow until they reach roughly their original size. The discovery of the new greater white-toothed shrew species may have a considerable future impact on local Irish ecology. They are largely absent from heavily forested areas.

Although there is no reason to fear their extinction, all shrews (including the common shrew) are protected under Schedule 6 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981). They are believed to have been introduced by man to all areas outside of their traditional range in Eurasia.Due to their small size and large numbers the pygmy shrew is a favorite prey species for a number of other animals and birds in Ireland including foxes, pine martens, stoats and predatory birds like owls, hawks and eagles therefore they are an important link in Irish ecosystems.