The Winter Shrew

Hi there, Some time ago I came across this article (or one very like it) regarding the winter habits of the common shrew. I encounter them semi-regularly, in various states of being and not-being, so their familiarity can sometimes obscure their weirdness. They are really weird though (they also have a venomous bite and can paralyse a slug).                                                                Fig 1. Likeness of a shrew "  A new study published Monday in  Current Biology  reports the skulls of  Sorex araneus , the most common shrew species, shrink by up to 20 percent as the cold season approaches. Come spring, their heads return to roughly normal size... It is not just the skulls that shrink with winter, however. Shrews’ brains appear to get smaller, too—by as much as 30 percent, according to prior dissection research. Moreover, the animals’ other organs also lose mass; even their spines get shorter. Overall, the latest study suggests shrew body mass drops by 18 percent