For a contest held by http://species-directory.deviantart.com/
The idea was to create a species if animal that can survive in the global warming and well...mice have survived since the dinosaurs so why not a small animal? Based greatly of a real Shrew mouse.

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Name: Leaftailed shrew mouse Lat. Scricidae folium

Height: 2 cm

Length: 5 cm with tail 11 cm, tail across is 3 cm

Life span: About 2 years. Longer if they don’t lose their tail too often. 5 years in captivity.

Life: The female carry their young for about a month before they are born. Unlike their antecessors they are born with good hearing but still naked. Their tail starts to evolve after just one day. After three month they are ready to leave their mother. In the desert they are ready to mate again after four month, on the plains and in the forest it is after five month. They need to feed constantly so they won’t die of hunger.

Looks:
Plains or close to water living (also known as Common Leaftailed shrew): Light brown fur with a usually white or grey belly. Tail has an either sand colored or slight grey tone over it.
Desert living: Sand colored fur or light brown like petrified wood. The tail looks like a dried leaf in color. They also have fur under their hands and feet to better protect against the hot sand.
Forest living (ground): Chestnut brown fur with slightly darker back fur. Tail usually has a green tone like a fallen leaf and even imitating the fibers of a real leaf.
Forest living (branches): The whole body has a green-ish blue tone over it to better blend in. This includes the tail as well.
Common for all species is that they have tiny black eyes and black claws. They all have long snouts to dig for roots or insects that hide in the ground. Their ears are small and usually without fur. Also the tail has no fur on it and consist mostly of water, fat, blood veins and muscles.

Diet: Worms, bugs, fruit, roots and in rare cases bird eggs or other mice and frogs. Leaves if nothing else is available.

Habitat: They can be found all over the globe except in the polar areas. They very well adapt to new areas. They tend to live close to humans or other larger animals for protection but also for food.

Habits: The Leaftailed shrew has, like its earlier antecessors, very poor eye vision but excellent hearing and sense of smell. They have also developed long sensitive whiskers to detect movements under ground. And, just like its antecessors, it can use a sort of echolocation when in tunnels or when hunting in dark places. While there are so many different kinds of Leaftailed shrew the only difference between them is where they live as none of them live underground anymore. While they can dig very well they can’t sleep underground as their tails are too large to fit in a hole.
They use their tail as protection against the sun or heavy rain but also to scare away predators in that they then raise their tail up makes blood rush to the tail making it flashing red and hissing. If that can’t scare the predator away they can drop their huge tail much like a lizard and run away. Every species of Leaftail shrew have a slight poison in their fur to make them taste bad.
In the desert the tail is also used as a water reservoir. Meaning that if they ever lose their tail they will quickly die of dehydration.

Adaptation: This little shrew evolved from many other shrews that later died out. Their tail evolved into its shape to make the mouse better to move from one place to another. Because unlike other species the Leaftailed shrew is color blind. This will help them mate with other subspecies of the Leaftailed shrew and in that case survive. So even if the forest disappears the Forest living shrew can move out to the plain lands or to the coast and still survive. Or the other way around. Thanks to their special tail they are also excellent swimmers. If landing in water they can quickly fold their tail under their body and use as a raft while they paddle with their front legs. But if they are forced to spend too long in the water their body is quickly cooled down and they get hypothermia.

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Time: About an hour to sketch out and another hour to colour

Tools used: Pen and paper, scanner, Photoshop elements 4.0 and optic mouse (yeah mouse not tablet)

Brushes: All found in PS

Leaftailed shrew mouse © me