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Some Effects Of The Bite Of The Short-Tailed Shrew, Blarina Brevicauda, Howard F. Krosch

Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science

Folklore, especially in Europe, has long maintained that shrews are extremely poisonous. Zoologists have discounted this belief as superstition until recently, when it was learned that at least two species of shrews - the European water shrew, Neomys fodiens, and the American short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda - produce a toxin in their sub-maxillary glands.