Oct 9 2009 Accident With an Unknown Mammal

House Shrew – more info on these here

I killed one of these the day before yesterday. I didn’t realize it until today when I smelled the decomposition smell coming from behind a big trunk.

Last week a black one ran in under the front door and I chased it around for a while until it ran out again. I think it ran into my neighbors place then as I heard the woman scream (they are out of towners staying with the landlord) and then a screeching sort of animal cry then I didn’t see the black one again so I think her son clobbered it.

The grey one that I accidently killed came in under the same door and ran behind the trunk. I thought that it had run out of there when I pushed the truck right next to the wall so it couldn’t go there again. Apparently it had only run around the side and I squashed it like a pancake. It didn’t make any noise at all so I didn’t know.

When I pulled out the trunk today it was stuck to the wall with it’s blood and stuff oozing out. It’s skull was fractured and it was quite squashed so it died fast.  And it was quite smelly. We are having unusually warm temps and high humidity so that accelerated the decomp. I got out a dustpan and some newspapers and removed it and put it outside in the bushes. Jackals will eat it.

I felt rather strange about this. I didn’t know it was a house shrew which are fairly beneficial since they eat cockroaches and other insects and not grain and stuff like that. I thought at first it was a rat in which case I wouldn’t have had much regret (but some!). But the nose was wrong. These shrews have an almost prehensile nose that looks like a tiny elephant trunk.

They are kind of cute but are rather weird when they run as it looks like they don’t have any legs. They sort of glide along the floor. Their legs are placed more underneath than a rats. The shrews don’t chew through thing.

But they do carry fleas the same as rats and in this area the fleas do carry the plague-bubonic variety-yes the black death-that medieval scourge. And they have been known to carry Hanta virus (which is nearly as deadly as Ebola)in other parts of Asia but Hanta virus has yet to spring up in India.

Anyways I did feel sorry that this happened. It struck me that it was incredibly easy to kill. And that on a broader scale life is a lot  more fragile than we realize. Wish I didn’t kill something to come to that conclusion though.