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BohoBio Bio
Hello, my name is RasQ, and this is my BohoBio Bio
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Name : RasQ the Sengi
Scientific Name : Elephantulus brachyrhynchus Other Name : elephant shrew, jumping shrew Home : Kafue National Park, Zambia Favorite Food : insects, spiders, worms Personality : shy, keep to myself, active day and night Best Features : super speed; long wiggly nose and long sticky tongue Biggest Concerns : avoiding predatory birds, cats and snakes, surviving human impact Shout out : African Wildlife Foundation |
MY ANCESTRY
I am often called an elephant shrew due to my long nose and shrew-like appearance. However, I am not a true shrew. I am actually more closely related to aardvarks and elephants (we all have long, flexible noses) than I am to shrews. There are 18 or so different species of sengis presently, and we all live in Africa and mostly in the southern half.
WHERE I’M FROM
There are 18 (perhaps 19) different species of sengi the world, and we all live in Africa and mostly in the southern half below the Sahara Desert. I am a short-snouted sengi and live in a grassland within Kafue National Park in Zambia.
I like dry, grassy areas, but other sengis prefer the desert, rocky terrain, dry forests or even dense rainforests.
I like dry, grassy areas, but other sengis prefer the desert, rocky terrain, dry forests or even dense rainforests.
TRAITS & ABILITIES
I’m quite small, even for a sengi. I weigh about 50 g (2 oz) and am 22 cm (8 inches) long while other types of sengi get up to 700 g. I have light brown fur with some white sprinkled in. My nose is long (though shorter than most sengis) and very flexible which helps my root around for insects. My long, sticky tongue works great for catching ants and other small insects. My ears are big and round and allow me to hear predators coming from a distance. My hind legs are long and strong and allow me to run really fast (up to 28 km per hour! ). This makes me one of the fastest mammals on the planet. When you factor in my small body size, I can run 3 times faster than a cheetah! This speed is very important as it allows us to escape most predators. Before a predator even starts its striking or pouncing motion, I am off and running, disappearing into the distance. I like to use the same path to travel along, so you may notice sengi speedways through the grass in places that we live.
FAMILY LIFE
We sengis like to live solitary, but busy lives. We maintain territories that we mark with a scent gland under our tails. Our lifespan is quite short (only 2 – 4 years) so we need to everything important done quickly. Pregnancy last 1.5 – 2 months and the mother will have between 1 or 2 shrewlets at a time. The shrewlets start wandering about after a couple days. After about 5 days the mom will start feeding her young ground up insects that she carries in her cheek pouch. By about 2 weeks, the young are hunting on their own, and by 6 weeks they are fully grown and off to start their own families.
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PRESENT & FUTURE
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Right now, I am classified as “least concern” by some of my relatives like the golden-rumped sengi and the grey-faced sengi are endangered or vulnerable to extinction. The Somali sengi was thought to be extinct until a few were found in Djibouti in 2020. We need your help if we are to have a future in which our home is safe for us to run around. We are fortunate to have friends like “African Wildlife Foundation”. This group and others are dedicated to protecting us and our homes. So long as the effort of people trying to protect us and our home are greater than the efforts of people trying to kill us or destroy our home, we will have a future presence on our planet.
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