Insectivore And Shrew Families

This group gathers taxon/Mammal Families subcategory members that are themselves mammal families belonging to the small-bodied, generally insect-eating mammals historically grouped together as insectivores and now more precisely split across several lineages, chiefly the order Eulipotyphla. It spans Soricidae, the shrew family and the most species-rich family in this group, Talpidae, the mole family, specialized for a burrowing, largely subterranean lifestyle with broad, shovel-like forepaws, and Erinaceidae, the hedgehog and gymnure family, recognizable in its spine-covered members for a defensive habit of curling into a tight, protected ball. Nearly every family gathered here shares a high metabolic rate and a diet centered on insects and other small invertebrates, a lifestyle that in several member families, the shrews especially, demands near-constant feeding to sustain a body too small to store much energy reserve.