Sorex 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

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

TYPE SPECIES: Sorex araneus Linnaeus, 1758 .

SYNONYMS: Amphisorex, Atophyrax , Corsira, Eurosorex , Homalurus, Microsorex, Musaraneus, Neosorex, Ognevia , Otisorex, Oxyrhin, Soricidus, Stroganovia .

COMMENTS: Type genus of Soricidae . The systematic relationships of a large number of Holarctic species were studied by George (1988); her proposals for subgeneric allocation are mainly followed here. Keys and/or reviews are available for the species of various geographical areas: Canada ( van Zyll de Jong, 1983a); North and Middle America ( Junge and Hoffmann, 1981; Carraway, 1990); China ( Hoffmann, 1987); Siberia ( Yudin, 1989); and Europe ( Niethammer and Krapp, 1990). Microsorex was formerly regarded as a full genus, then reduced to a subgenus of Sorex by Diersing (1980b), and is now regarded as a synonym of subgenus Otisorex (see George, 1988). The subgenus Amphisorex (type species Sorex hermanni Duvernoy, 1834 ) was alternatively listed under Sorex and Neomys by Miller (1912a), Ellermann and Morrison-Scott (1951), and Corbet (1978c). Miller (1912a) stated that the type of Sorex hermanni consisted of a skin of Sorex araneus and a skull of Neomys fodiens. To avoid further confusion, I herewith designate the skin of Sorex hermanni Duvernoy, 1834 as the lectotype, thus making hermanni a synonym of araneus, and Amphisorex a synonym of Sorex. Besides subgenera a number of species groups have been distinguished such as the araneus-arcticus group ( Meylan and Hausser, 1973; Hausser et al., 1985), the cinereus group (van Zyll de Jong, 19916), and the vagrans group ( Carraway, 1990), the boundaries and contents of which are still highly controversial. Old World species of Sorex were reviewed by Dannelid (19916) who provided a phylogenetic hypothesis of relationships.