Sorex araneus Linnaeus, 1758

Rainer Hutterer, 1993, Order Insectivora, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 69-130 : 111-112

Sorex araneus Linnaeus, 1758 . Syst. Nat., 10th ed., 1:53 .

TYPE LOCALITY: "in Europe cryptis"; restricted to Uppsala, Sweden by Thomas (1911a:143) .

DISTRIBUTION: C, E, and N Europe including the British Isis (with some isolated populations in France, Italy and Spain), east to Siberia.

SYNONYMS: alticola, antinorii, bergensis, bohemicus, bolkayi, carpathicus, castaneus, concinnus, crassicaudatus, csikii, daubentonii , eleonorae, grantii, hermanni , huelleri, ignotus, iochanseni, labiosus, macrotrichus, marchicus, melanodon, mollis, monsvairani, nigra, nuda, ryphaeus, pallidus, personatus, petrovi, peucinius, preussi , pulcher, pyrenaicus , pyrrhonota , quadricaudatus, rhinolophus, silanus, surinamensis , tetragonurus, uralensis, vulgaris, wettsteini.

COMMENTS: Type species of subgenus Sorex . S. araneus is the preferred Palearctic species for studies in ecology and evolution; see Hausser et al. (1990) and Hausser (1991) for reviews. The species is well known for its Robertsonian chromosome polymorphism ( Meylan, 1964) and for the tendency to establish local karyotype races ( Hausser et al., 1985; Searle, 1984; Zima and Kräl, 1984 h); in Switzerland, two karyotype races occur which behave like parapatric species ( Hausser et al., 1986). Includes Blarina pyrrhonota Jentink, 1910 , a name assigned to Cryptotis surinamensis by Cabrera (1958); however, Husson (1963) showed that the locality information was incorrect and that it was based on a Sorex araneus . The holotype skin (skull lost) of Sylvisorex preussi Matschie , formerly thought to represent an endemic Myosorex of Mt. Cameroon ( Heim de Balsac, 1968b), is a Sorex araneus and is therefore included as a synonym. Sorex isodon marchicus , recently described from E Germany ( Passarge, 1984), is also tentatively included in araneus as no clear characters are known to distinguish it from the latter.