Crocidura rhoditis Miller and Hollister, 1921

Esselstyn, Jacob A., Achmadi, Anang S., Handika, Heru, Swanson, Mark T., Giarla, Thomas C. & Rowe, Kevin C., 2021, Fourteen New, Endemic Species Of Shrew (Genus Crocidura) From Sulawesi Reveal A Spectacular Island Radiation, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2021 (454), pp. 1-109 : 42-46

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.1206/0003-0090.454.1.1

publication LSID

lsid:zoobank.org:pub:7982B923-4CDC-44ED-A598-8651009DC7CC

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5795524

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/038AB318-0133-E921-4DF1-FA23FCC8B6ED

treatment provided by

Felipe

scientific name

Crocidura rhoditis Miller and Hollister, 1921
status

 

Crocidura rhoditis Miller and Hollister, 1921 View in CoL

Crocidura rhoditis Miller and Hollister, 1921: 102 View in CoL . Original description.

HOLOTYPE: USNM 217550 About USNM , an adult male collected 3 August 1916 by H.C. Raven. Prepared as a skin and skull. External measurements from the type are 153 mm × 70 mm × 17 mm; ear length and weight were not recorded. GoogleMaps

TYPE LOCALITY: “Temboan, northeastern Celebes” (Miller and Hollister, 1921: 102; fig. 20 View FIG ). Temboan   GoogleMaps is located at 0.979° N, 124.605° E, 650 m elevation in the Southeast Minahasa Regency   GoogleMaps , North Sulawesi Province, 6 km south of Kalait. See the gazetteer (appendix) for a detailed explanation of our interpretation of Raven’s type locality.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: Known only from the north-east area of endemism (Temboan and Mt. Ambang, North Sulawesi Province; fig. 20 View FIG ). Ruedi (1995) reported specimens from Mt. Rorekatimbo, but mitochondrially ( Ruedi et al., 1998), these match the sister taxon, Crocidura pseudorhoditis . Musser (1987) reported C. rhoditis from southwestern and central Sulawesi, but those records likely represent other taxa. We recorded this species between 1400 and 1700 m on Mt. Ambang ( fig. 13 View FIG ; table 3 View TABLE 3 ). Specimens from Temboan are from low elevation habitat, probably around 650 m.

EMENDED DIAGNOSIS: Crocidura rhoditis is one of the larger shrews on Sulawesi ( tables 2 View TABLE 2 , 7 View TABLE 7 ), with a stocky build ( fig. 17 View FIG ). Its overall color is paler than most species on the island, with a medium gray dorsal pelage and slightly paler venter, often with cinnamon highlights. The feet are pale, especially the forefeet. The digits of the hand are nearly white or pale pink colored, but those of the hind feet are off-white. The tail is slightly shorter than head-and-body length, thick at the base, and similar in color to the pelage. Tail bristles are present, but sparse along the proximal half of the tail ( fig. 21D View FIG ). The lips are paler than the surrounding pelage and the rhinarium is also generally pale, but the upper margins of each nostril have a dark rim. The skull of C. rhoditis is large, with the rostral length making up an unusually large proportion of skull length (RL/CIL; fig. 10 View FIG ). The braincase is wider than expected for a shrew of this size, but the interorbital region is narrow relative to the braincase breadth ( figs. 10 View FIG , 22A View FIG ). The lambdoidal ridge is fairly prominent and the squamosalparietal suture also forms a ridge that extends horizontally from above the internal ear to above the glenoid fossa. This ridge is visible from a dorsal aspect and highlights the tapering shape of the anterior portion of the braincase margin. The angle at which the braincase narrows anteriorly is similar to the tapered shape of the interorbital region. The dentition is robust, occupying a large portion of the palate ( fig. 22A View FIG ).

COMPARISONS: Crocidura rhoditis is larger than all Sulawesi Crocidura except C. elongata , C. quasielongata , C. nigripes , and the two Thick- Tailed Group members, C. brevicauda and C. caudicrassa . Its mass-to-HBL ratio is greater than in all other species except C. caudicrassa ( fig. 17 View FIG ) and its relative rostral length (RL/CIL) is greater than in all other species ( fig. 10 View FIG ). The tail of C. rhoditis is much shorter absolutely and relative to body length than in members of the Long-Tailed Group, but longer absolutely than in all other species except C. pseudorhoditis ( fig. 9 View FIG ). The dorsal pelage of C. rhoditis is similar in color to C. elongata , darker than C. quasielongata , and paler than C. nigripes . The feet of C. rhoditis are paler than those of most other species, with the excep- tions of C. lea (much smaller), C. pallida (smaller), C. elongata (longer tail), and C. quasielongata (longer tail). Within the Rhoditis Group, C. rhoditis is easily confused with C. pseudorhoditis , its apparent sister species, but it is larger in all dimensions than the other two members of the Rhoditis Group, C. australis and C. pallida . Both C. rhoditis and C. pseudorhoditis have a pale integument, but C. rhoditis is larger, slightly paler, and has a narrower thenar pad on the hind foot ( fig. 21 View FIG ). Although differences in body length are modest ( fig. 23 View FIG ), C. rhoditis is stockier than C. pseudorhoditis ( fig. 17 View FIG ) and size differences are apparent in condyloincisive length and braincase breadth ( fig. 23 View FIG ; table 7 View TABLE 7 ). In addition to the greater relative rostral length mentioned above, C. rhoditis also has a lesser relative interorbital width (IOW/CIL) than all other members of the Rhoditis Group ( fig. 10 View FIG ). The narrowness of the interorbital region is also reflected in that it is lesser relative to braincase breadth (IOW/BB) in C. rhoditis compared to C. pseudorhoditis , whereas braincase breadth relative to skull length (BB/CIL) does not differ appreciably between the two species ( figs. 10 View FIG , 22 View FIG ). The skull of C. rhoditis has a prominent ridge at the suture of the squamosal and parietal bones. This ridge is present, but less conspicuous in C. pseudorhoditis . A PCA of cranial measurements largely separates these two taxa along the first axis, which represents size ( fig. 19 View FIG ; table 6 View TABLE 6 ). The differences in size measurements between C. rhoditis and its sister species are somewhat more pronounced when only syntopically sampled specimens from Mt. Ambang are considered ( fig. 23 View FIG ), perhaps indicating a role for character displacement in these species.

COMMENTS: Mitochondrial sequences from the type series ( USNM 217550 About USNM , 217552 About USNM , and 217554, and FMNH 43858 About FMNH ) are all very similar to cytochrome b sequences from our Mt. Ambang specimens, with maximum intraspecific Jukes-Cantor distances ≤0.011 ( fig. 4 View FIG ; supplementary data S5). Parapatrically distributed, phenotypically similar specimens with distinct mitochondrial sequences (mean Jukes-Cantor

distance = 0.08) and smaller skulls are described below as Crocidura pseudorhoditis . Although the morphological differences between these two species are slight, the fairly large mitochondrial divergence, corroborating inferences from nuclear exons and UCEs ( figs. 7 View FIG , 8 View FIG ; supplementary data S6), and their syntopy on Mt. Ambang ( fig. 20 View FIG ) strongly support their recognition as distinct taxa. See the account of C. pseudorhoditis for results of BPP analyses.

LENGTH 100

HEAD-AND-BODY 80

90 70 N = 5 N = 74 N = 49 N = 94 N = 18 N = 27

SPECIMENS EXAMINED: Mt. Ambang ( LSUMZ 39032 , 39033 , 39037 , 39038 , 39050 , 39053– 39055 , 39062 , 39064 , 39065 , 39068 , 39284 , 39296 , 39319 , 39321 ; NMV C38022 , C38031 ), Temboan ( USNM 217550 , 217552 , 217554 , FMNH 43858 ).

N

Nanjing University

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Mammalia

Order

Soricomorpha

Family

Soricidae

Genus

Crocidura

Loc

Crocidura rhoditis Miller and Hollister, 1921

Esselstyn, Jacob A., Achmadi, Anang S., Handika, Heru, Swanson, Mark T., Giarla, Thomas C. & Rowe, Kevin C. 2021
2021
Loc

Crocidura rhoditis

Miller and Hollister 1921: 102
1921
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