The Vagrant Shrew is a medium-sized North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n shrew

Shrew

A shrew or shrew mouse is a small molelike mammal classified in the order Soricomorpha. True shrews are also not to be confused with West Indies shrews, treeshrews, otter shrews, or elephant shrews, which belong to different families or orders.Although its external appearance is generally that of...

. At one time, the Montane Shrew

Montane Shrew

The Montane Shrew is a species of mammal in the Soricidae family. It is found in Alaska, western Canada, the western United States and Mexico....

 (S. monticolus) was considered to belong to the same species as this animal.

It is red brown in colour with greyer underparts and a long tail which is sometimes paler underneath. During winter, its fur is dark brown. Its body is about 10 cm in length including a 4 cm long tail and it weighs about 6 g.

This animal is found in open and wooded areas in western Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 west of the Continental Divide

Continental Divide

The Continental Divide of the Americas, or merely the Continental Gulf of Division or Great Divide, is the name given to the principal, and largely mountainous, hydrological divide of the Americas that separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from those river systems that drain...

.

It often uses runways created by vole

Vole

A vole is a small rodent resembling a mouse but with a stouter body, a shorter hairy tail, a slightly rounder head, smaller ears and eyes, and differently formed molars . There are approximately 155 species of voles. They are sometimes known as meadow mice or field mice in North America...

s. Its diet includes insects, earthworm

Earthworm

Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...

s, salamander

Salamander

Salamander is a common name of approximately 500 species of amphibians. They are typically characterized by a superficially lizard-like appearance, with their slender bodies, short noses, and long tails. All known fossils and extinct species fall under the order Caudata, while sometimes the extant...

s, small mammals and some plant material. Predators include owl

Owl

Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...

s, snakes and mustelids. This animal sometimes uses echolocation

Animal echolocation

Echolocation, also called biosonar, is the biological sonar used by several kinds of animals.Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these echoes to locate and identify the objects...

to orient itself in unfamiliar locations.

This animal is active year-round, mainly at night. It is mainly solitary except during breeding which mainly occurs in the spring. The female has 1 or 2 litters of 3 to 8 young in a nest in a stump or under a log.