Species Fact Profile: Northern Tree Shrew (Tupaia belangeri)

 Northern Tree Shrew
Tupaia belangeri (Wagner, 1841)

Range: Southeast Asia – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam

Habitat: Tropical and Subtropical Forests, up to 3000 meters elevation

Diet: Primarily feed on insects, but also eat fruit, buds, small lizards, and eggs.  

Social Grouping: Male and female sharing overlapping territories (home range is about 0.8 hectares).  Territories are marked with scent from glands on the chest, and violence may be used to defend territory against rivals of the same sex

Reproduction:    Breeding can occur at any time of year with no seasonal peaks.    Gestation period 41-45 days.  Litter consists of 1-5 young weighing 6-10 grams, born naked, blind, and helpless; ears open at 10 days after birth, eyes at 20 days.  Weaned at 35 days old. Sexually mature at 4 months, at which age young are driven from mother's territory

Lifespan: 5-10 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern, CITES Appendix II

•       Head to body length 12-21 centimeters with an additional 14-20 centimeters of tail.  Weigh 50-270 grams.  Males are somewhat larger than females and typically have broader skulls.  Snout is pointed, ears are small and bare, toes clawed.
•       Short, course fur is grayish to olive in color (sometimes with a reddish tinge in the northern populations).  Often has a faint, pale stripe on shoulder.   Paler on the underbelly.  Males often have a ring of white hair around the eyes
•       Unable to obtain much moisture from their food, have to drink free water daily.
•       Predators include snakes, birds of prey, and small carnivorous mammals
•       Makes nests in tree hollows, fallen trees, or bamboo cavities.  Body temperature rises from 35 degrees Celsius at night to 40 degrees Celsius during the day
•       Weaned at 35 days old (females only nurse the young every other day or so – milk is very high in fat of compensate).   Males are not involved in parental care; females have perhaps the least amount of contact with their young of any mammal species
•        Genome was sequenced in 2006.  Used as a medical model for study in potential treatments for hepatitis C and photoreception (eyes are more similar to those of humans than those of other lab models such as rodents are).  Highest brain to body mass ratio of any animals
•       Originally considered to be part of the order Insectivora (hedgehogs, shrews), later considered to be some of the earliest primates, tree shrews are now believed to be more closely related to rabbits than to primates, but this is still disputed – diverged from primates, rodents, and rabbits over 90 million years ago
•       One of 19 tree shrew species.  Genus name comes from the Malay tupai, which means “squirrel”