Has anyone else come across a small mammal, about 5-6 inches long, of greyish/tan hue with a long tubular snout? Mine is on Lantau island.

If it's a vole I'm going to name it Rudolf after that Austrian chap with the last name of Voll, who used to submit letters to the editor of the SCMP.

The <i>Hong Kong Animals</i> book doesn't list any voles. If it's not a rodent it might be a shrew or a civet.

Sounds like a shrew with this size and shape. I've seen one or two dead ones in the bush. There are two species on Lamma (and in the region as a whole, I think) - the larger one is the house shrew (Suncus murinus). Here is a fine profile from a Philippine site:

<img src="http://www.compunicate.com/Lamma/27/Suncus_murinus-bb.jpg" border=1>

The smaller one is the Indo-Chinese shrew Crocidura attenuata. Here is a drawing of one - the only one I could find is a sub-species found only on Christmas Island.

<img src="http://www.compunicate.com/Lamma/27/Shrew-Christmas-I-bb.gif" border=1>

There are so few shrews or small mammals of any kind on Lamma. If you stroll around and see the wild cat population, you'll soon realise why. The cats below (they can look like black panthers if the scale is ignored) are fed by kindly souls around Tai Ping, but will still take the opportunity to grab anything small and furry or feathery that moves within range.

<img src="http://www.compunicate.com/Lamma/27/black-cats-bb.jpg" border=1>

Thanks for the replies. I was a bit too slow to take a snap, even though I did have a recently purchased, second hand Vivitar 105mm micro lens on camera!

The critter was under one of my wood piles which I was airing and clearing out, but I replaced the tarpaulin and and so it should still be there. It had made a nest out of grass and there was spoor about.

Say, how 'bout we trade some of Lantau's small furry mammals for a couple of dem Lamma wimmin?

Feel free to take the dogs.

Thanks Alan and Zep, for the pics and drawing. I have a shrew about and in my house, but I can't differentiate as yet, which one I havee.

I managed to trap it with a rat trap using a fishball as bait, then photographed it. Not ideal beacuse of the wire mesh, but useful. The body was about 4-5 inches with a 2 inch tail. Their spoor seem inordinately large for their body size.

And these seemingly harmless kittens can climb too! I used to live nearby the Regents at Tai Peng and the cats are regular visitors to my roof top!!

It should be a shrew, they are very short live, and if they felt threaten, they made this high pitch sound, the reason this is bad news is because its urine really smell bad, I used to share my home in Fanling with one and if I get close enough to its nest, gee the smell is really bad and it is very hard to get rip of, so I put out a mouse trap with a grass hopper as bite, (not one of those kill it or injury it, but just to capture it), in two days it was caught, it hate light, so I did a bit of torturing with a bright light shining on it, making sure it knows and release it outside the house - about 50 m walking distance - waste land with some grass, and as far as I know, my method work cos it never come back again.

Dont get bitten by it, first of all, its easy to get an infection, second, shrew's sliver contain a toxin, it can kill.....may be other expert can tell you better.