Rare Animal in California Photographed for the First Time Ever
A rare shrew that has never been photographed before has finally been caught on camera thanks to the efforts of three young researchers.
Until very recently the Mount Lyell shrew was the only mammal living in California to never have been caught in a photographer’s lens. That is until a few months ago when 22-year-old photographer and researcher Vishal Subramanyan became possibly the first person ever to see the shrew alive.
The Mount Lyell shrew is just four inches (10 centimeters) long and weighs a meager two grams. It lives in a small area of Eastern Sierra Nevada where it was first identified by biologist Clinton Hart Merriam in 1902.
Subramanyan tells SFGate that he and his friends Harper Forbes, 22, and Prakrit Jain, 20, got the idea to trap the Mount Lyell shew when they realized that it was the only California mammal species never to be photographed alive.
“It’s very possibly one of the most poorly known mammal species in California,” tells SFGate. “Photography is really important for cataloging biodiversity on a rapidly changing planet.”
“When it comes to California’s shrews, there’s so few good photos out there,” he continues. “So taking these photos that haven’t really been taken before helps the public understand and foster a connection with these animals.”
“The majority of earth’s biodiversity remains unknown. Projections suggest that most species remain scientifically undescribed, and of the described species, the majority remain unphotographed. Only a tiny fraction have seen any sort of detailed field study,” says Jain in a statement.
“This issue persists even in well-studied places like California. In an era of rapid biodiversity loss, it is important to record this information while it still exists while simultaneously fighting the extinction crisis.”
The trio embarked upon a three-night field expedition on November 1, setting up camp in the high desert of the Eastern Sierra. They trapped the shrews in “literal plastic cups” that were filled with cat food and mealworms.
Part of the reason Mount Lyell shrews have never been photographed is because of their speedy metabolism which means they will die if they don’t eat every two hours. So the group had to monitor the traps constantly and didn’t sleep for more than two hours at night to ensure they didn’t wake up to any dead shrews.
“It was kind of go, go, go,” Subramanyan tells SFGate. “You trap some shrews, you photograph them, you release them, and by that time there are more shrews. So it was pretty nonstop.”
Subramanyan calls the trip “brutal” but ultimately rewarding. He had to wait for confirmation that he had captured Mount Lyell shrews because while it is genetically distinct from other shrews they look very similar.
California lists the Mount Lyell shrew as a mammal species of special concern.
Image credits: Photographs by Vishal Subramanyan