Sengis | Macroscelidea

Springspitsmuizen | Macroscelídeos

Small, long-legged mammals with a mobile conical snout that its own muscles can point in any direction, like a short trunk, and that probes the ground without pause. The eyes are large and the ears broad and thin: unlike the shrews they resemble, these animals run on sight and hearing. The hind legs are far longer than the front pair and the feet narrow, so that when disturbed they bound away in long fast leaps; at an easy pace they walk on all fours. The tongue is long and is flicked well beyond the mouth to pick up ants and termites. Their kinship is not with the insectivores but with the elephants, sea cows and hyraxes: the order belongs to the African branch of the placental mammals and reaches the area of this guide only in north-western Africa.

Families in this order

Sengis | Macroscelididae1 speciesThe snout is this family's tool: conical, made mobile by muscles of its own and probing the ground without pause, after which a long tongue picks up ants, termites and beetles. The body is light and the hind legs thin and long; at any alarm the animal bounds away along a network of little paths that it keeps clear itself and checks daily — an obstacle on such a path costs it its life during a chase, and the sweeping of them takes up much of the day. Male and female share one territory for years, but each defends it against rivals of its own sex and otherwise they keep largely apart. The litter is small — one or two young — but they are born furred and open-eyed and are on their feet almost at once. North-western Africa holds a single species, on rocky slopes and stony desert.