This small shrew is known from the Sierra de Celaque in Honduras. The description paper reports specimens from three sites at 1,430–2,560 m.
The species description gives a black to olive-black back, with hairs mostly silvery gray and tipped dark brown. The underside is also dark gray-black; the forefeet are broad and the claws long and broad.
The Celaque Broad-clawed Shrew shares a riverside locality near the national park visitor centre with Merriam’s Small-eared Shrew and Cryptotis orophilus.
The 2012 field report recorded a female C. orophilus in a pitfall on 12 October 1992 at 1,430 metres. Two days later, females of the Celaque shrew and Merriam’s shrew were caught nearby, revealing additional members of the local assemblage.
The Celaque specimen initially carried another species name. Comparing skulls and limb bones led to recognition of C. celaque in 2015. Preserved specimens thus allowed an older riverside record to be connected with a newly recognised species.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Conservation depends on retaining the moist montane forest where this shrew is documented. The 2016 park management plan identified agricultural and livestock expansion and slash-and-burn practices as pressures on cloud forest. It included restoration of areas prioritised for protection, research and monitoring. Forest protection together with continued checks of the shrew’s occurrence would support its conservation.