The Shrew (ist's) Site is the work of Dr. Werner Haberl, a zoologist based in Vienna, Austria, who launched this site in October 1996 with one goal: to become the definitive online resource for everything related to shrews. Not metaphorical shrews. Not Shakespeare's shrew. Real, tiny, insectivorous mammals of the family Soricidae. And honestly? He may have pulled it off.
The scope of this thing is staggering. The homepage promises "8 MB of shrew data," which in 1996 terms was enormous, and the site delivers. There's a bibliography of over 6,000 scientific references on shrew biology, available on CD-ROM ("Only few copies left!" it warns). There's a photo gallery covering dozens of species, from Sorex araneus to Suncus etruscus, with contributors from universities and museums around the world. There's a newsletter called "Shrew Talk" with archived issues going back to June 1997, covering everything from shrew foraging strategies to trapping methods. There's even a page listing "Shrewists on E-mail," which is essentially a global directory of shrew researchers, complete with their institutions, fax numbers, and specialties.
But the parts that really got me were the weirder corners. The "Culture, Myths, Folklore, Stories and Poisonous Facts" section includes pages on shrews in ancient Egypt, legends and superstitions about shrews, and yes, a dedicated page about poisonous shrews (some shrews actually are venomous, which I did not know before today). There's a page about fish predating on shrews, featuring a photo of a trout that literally choked on one. The leisure section has shrew-themed computer art, shrew poems, a story by Gerald Durrell about encountering an African forest shrew, and a link to information about a band apparently also called "Shrew."
Then there's the Shrew Fleamarket, which is maybe my favorite page. It's a not-yet-operational gift shop proposing items like a longsleeve shirt with a shrew caravan on the sleeve, postcards of "Shru-puter Art" (digital shrew illustrations by an artist named Mary D. Smith), a shrew rubber stamp, a shrew mouse pad, and a t-shirt labeled "Metabolically active wear" with the slogan "No Gluttony, No Glory." None of these items appear to have ever actually been sold. The page just says "You will be contacted when the sale starts." It's perfect.
The guestbook archives from 1997 to 2000 are a joy to read. You get a mix of actual shrew scientists thanking Dr. Haberl for the resource, random people who just discovered that the "weird mouse" in their garden was actually a shrew, someone named Yo Kintner who simply wrote "YO Hi I love shrews Yo signing off," and a zookeeper from Rotterdam asking for help because her elephant shrew babies kept dying at 21 days old. A guy in the Netherlands wants to know how to destroy the shrews causing a terrible smell around his house every February. Two people named Alfreda and Tanisha Shrewha claim they were searching for their family tree and accidentally became "Dismal Swamp Shrew experts."
What holds the whole thing together is Dr. Haberl's clear sense of purpose. He built this as a scholarly forum, but also as something accessible and fun. The "How to Contribute" page makes it clear he sees the site as a community project, not a personal showcase. "This is not MY site," he writes. "It is composed of numerous contributions by a great number of people that thought it worthwhile to share their experience, scientific records and illustrations." He calls non-scientist visitors "shrew-mateurs" and genuinely welcomes their observations. The site was recognized by Science Magazine as the "Coolest Science Site" in November 1996 and got mentioned in BBC Wildlife Magazine and Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
It's a site that could only exist because one person cared deeply about a very specific thing and decided to put everything he knew about it on the internet, by hand, one HTML page at a time. Go poke around. Start with the photo gallery, wander into the folklore section, read some guestbook entries, and see how far the rabbit hole (shrew hole?) goes.