Page 1 - Vogel_ali_1989

Bonn. zoo!. Beitr. Bd. 40 H . 3/ 4 s. 243-248 Bonn, Dezember 1989

The correct name, species diagnosis, and distribution
of the Sicilian shrew

P. Vogel, R. H utterer & M. Sarà

Ab st r a c t. ew karyological a nd morphological data show t hai Sicily, the Egadi Jslands,
Malta and Gozo are (ore were) inhabited by a particular species of Crocidura, for which
the name Crocidura sicula ì\liller, 1901 is a\'ailable. The species is briefly diagnosed and
de cribed and a new key to the European species of Crocidura is pre cntcd.

Ke y words. ì\ lammalia, Soricidae, Crocidura sicula, Mediterranean lslands.

The discovery of a new karyotype not shared by any other European Crocidura spe-
cies (Vogel 1988) once again raised the question of the correct status o f the white-
toothed shrews of Sicily and surrounding archipelagos. We do not wish to repeat ali
the different views about these animals here; table l shows the variety of taxonomic
opinions exp ressed in the scientific literature from 1879 to present.

T ab le l. Species allocations of white-toothed sh rews of Sicily and adjoining islands expres-
sed in the literature sìnce 1879. According to the authors' results, all populations
belong to the same species.

Taxon/ lsland Sicily Egadia Is. Malta Gozo

sicula x x x x
caudata x x
suaveolens x x
russula
/eucodon ;..

x

The new karyotype (2 n = 36, NF = 56) revealed the existence of a different spe-

cies in Sicily, but its correct name had stili to be fixed. l t remained also unclear whe-
ther there occurs more than one species of Crocidura in Sicily, a view adopted by Ves-
manis (1976) in a recent taxonornic study of the Crocidura species of Sicily.

In this note we present a solution of the problem, to which we carne almost inde-
pendently wit h different app roaches and methods, including morphological and sta-
tistica! studies of recent and fossi) materials as well as karyo logical and biochemical
techniques.

Ou r main results are as fo llows:
- We found no evidence for the presence of more than one species of Crocidura in
Sicily. A multivariate analysis of skull measuremen ts a long an east-west and a noth-
south gradient showed no biometrica! d ifferences (Sarà et a l., in prep.). We therefore
conclude that a l1 avai lable sp ecimens belo ng to the same taxon, confirming the inter-
p retation of Con toli et al. (1989). T he ho lotypes of the two species described from