The common shrew looks unremarkable, a few grams of fur and teeth scurrying under leaf litter. Yet this tiny mammal performs one of the strangest tricks in biology, shrinking its own brain and skull ...

“Shrews have adapted incredible mechanisms for survival,” she said. They’re even equipped with scent glands on their sides that emit a “repulsive odor” to repel many predators, she added. A cat, ...