Most are a grayish-brown coloration with a paler colored belly. Some are distinctly bicolored. Shrews are short-legged and have a long pointed nose with long whiskers. Their teeth are tiny, white with reddish-brown tips, but sharp for attacking and eating prey. Their tails are hairy in young shrews but usually naked in old adults.
Shrews have musk glands that give off a strong odor, especially when handled.
Their eyes are tiny and vision is poor, but they have acute senses of smell and hearing. Most of the species are genetically related to other species in Asia or North America. Shrews have not been so intensively studied as other mammals, and their distribution is not exactly known. Shrews are solitary except when breeding, mainly terrestrial, and live under the grass and leaf litter. They are active throughout the year and burrow through the snow during the winter.