This is the front paw of a little short-tailed shrew. I found it dead in the middle of the trail. No obvious signs of injury on it. It is common enough to find these little insectivores as if they just dropped dead in their tracks. Which is likely what happened here. They have an amazing metabolic system and need to eat just about constantly, and if not.... Their diet consists of insects, frogs, tadpoles, worms, meadow voles and other mice, and even young rabbits which are waaay bigger than these little creatures who measure about 3 to 5 inches. Their saliva is toxic to their prey (but not to us, as we are too big to be impacted) and is what allows them to capture such big prey, compared to themselves.

I took a photo of this front paw because it is so intriguing and almost human. These paws are big and strong relatively speaking, because the shrew is mostly an underground mammal, and needs to be able to dig quickly and well.