The behaviour of licking the everted rectum in shrews, hitherto referred to as "coprophagy" or "refection" is reviewed. To avoid confusion with "true" faeces-eating, it is proposed to persistently use the descriptive term "rectum-licking" when referring to this phenomenon. The behaviour is characterized by the animal everting the rectum by a series of abdominal contractions and licking it in a curled-up posture, apparently ingesting a yet undetermined substance often described as a "milky white fluid". This behaviour has been reported repeatedly, but most previous observations are only fragmentary and the accounts on the generality, frequency, rhythm, timing, mechanism, and functions of the behaviour are not all consistent. Rectum-licking is certainly an infrequent and elusive behaviour, which can be mistaken for other behaviours that share the same curled-up posture. Further studies are required to elucidate this behaviour.
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