Insectivora
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| Insectivora Fossil range: Late Cretaceous - Recent |
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 European Hedgehog
Erinaceus europaeus |
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Erinaceidae |
The name insectivora (insect eater) has reference to the food habits of the group as a whole. Although moles and shrews are not all strictly insectivorous, insects and other small animal life constitute the chief dietary items of most members of the group. Some kinds, the otter shrews of Africa and the star-nosed mole of America, for example, feed also upon fish. The Townsend mole of the Pacific Northwest often is a nuisance to bulb growers because of its fondness for the bulbs of many kinds of plants.
Moles, as a group, are subterranean in habit and spend most of their lives in the darkness of underground tunnels which they usually excavate for themselves. Correlated with this fossorial habit, the eyes of all moles are very small, in some species actually not opening to the outside, and of little value to them. On the other hand, their senses of touch and smell are highly developed.
[change] Classification
One species of mole and four species of shrews occur in Texas.
- ORDER INSECTIVORA
- Family Erinaceidae
- Subfamily Erinaceinae: hedgehogs
- Subfamily Hylomyinae: moonrats and gymnures
- Family Soricidae
- Subfamily Crocidurinae: white-toothed shrews
- Subfamily Soricinae: red-toothed shrews
- Subfamily Myosoricinae: African white-toothed shrews
- Family Talpidae
- Subfamily Desmaninae: desmans
- Subfamily Talpinae: moles
- Subfamily Uropsilinae: shrew moles
- Family Solenodontidae: solenodons
- Family Nesophontidae: extinct West Indian shrews
- Family Erinaceidae
