Marvels of nature at ground level

While walking along the east side of Lower South Branch Pond in Baxter State Park, I saw a dead shrew right in the middle of the trail. I stopped to look, because it’s seldom that you see a shrew. Might as well study what they look like – beware, the following might be gross or fascinating, depending on your point of view.

This one was a short-tail shrew. It looked thoroughly dead, but started to move as it lay there. It stayed in one place, but seemed be slowly writhing.

I couldn’t understand what was happening.

Then a big, black and red carrion beetle, an inch long, emerged from under the shrew. The beetle walked away from the dead shrew, which now was lying still.

Then the beetle turned back toward the dead shrew and went to all its vulnerable areas with less hair, such as under its tail and its armpit.

The beetle kept going under the shrew and making it look like it was writhing in slow-motion.

After awhile, I continued on my hike to see the beautiful pools on Howe Brook. Then I headed back the way I came, wondering if the dead shrew would still be there.

It was. It was still writhing. As I watched, one – then another, then a third carrion beetle came out from under the shrew. Perplexed, I walked back to South Branch Pond Camp. I had plenty of time to wonder about the carrion beetles. Why do they crawl under the shrew, making it move? Where do they come from? How do they find a body? Do they eat it, or lay their eggs in it or what?

Later, I had a chance to read up on carrion beetles. They fly to the dead animal from as far as a mile and a half away. They sense the dead animal and go to it within a half an hour of its death. There are many species of carrion beetles; they lay their eggs in a small, dead animal.

Vultures, crows, gray jays and ravens take care of dead large mammals; carrion beetles take care of small animals.

Larvae of some carrion beetle species eat the dead animal; larvae of other carrion beetle species eat the maggots – larvae of flies – in the dead animal.

They tunnel under the small, dead animal, over and over. That results in a cavity in the soil. Eventually they bury the small animal, and lay their eggs in it.

These beetles are becoming more and more uncommon. One species is even on the Federal Endangered Species List. Carrion beetles can live only in large undisturbed areas.

Several groups of hikers, adults and children, went by the dead shrew.

They noticed it, and thought it was dead – then thought it was still alive when it moved. We compared notes back at the campground. We all had been fascinated and perplexed by what we saw.

We can marvel at the beauty and grandeur of Katahdin, and we can also marvel at the ways of nature at ground level and below. Thank you, Gov. Baxter, for your wondrous gift to the people of Maine.

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.