Its coat is a yellow-brown mixture of hair, bristles, and spines. The hedgehog tenrec, Setifer setosus, resembles a true hedgehog. The short-haired rice tenrecs, genus Oryzorictes, are molelike animals whose tunneling causes much damage in rice fields. The long-tailed tenrec, Microgale longicaudata, is mouselike in size and appearance, with a tail two and a half times its body length, and it is able to jump. The water tenrec, Linmogale mergulus, is a rat-sized aquatic animal with webbed feet and a keeled tail.
All tenrecs are nocturnal, most hibernate in the winter, and many are dormant in hot weather.
They live on a diet of small animals, chiefly worms and insects. Females have as many as twenty-two teats and give birth to litters of fifteen to twenty young. The giant water shrews of the central African forest belong to the family Potamogalidae, sometimes considered a subfamily of the Tenrecidae. These animals are otterlike in appearance and way of life, with fine fur and a laterally compressed tail. Other animals called water shrews are members of the true shrew family.