PARIS—Pity the poor elephant shrew. For much of this century, taxonomists, at a loss over how to classify this small, bug-eating African mammal, put it with the insectivores, an order that includes moles and hedgehogs. Then, in the late 1980s, a reevaluation of mammalian fossil evidence led some experts to suggest that this lowly animal—with its long, flexible snout resembling a tiny elephant's trunk—was closer to rodents and rabbits on the evolutionary tree.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Michael Balter (1997) studied this question.