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244 P. V o g e l , R. H u tt e r e r & ;-.. 1. S a r à
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UTR (mm)
t- Gozo >< Egadi C Siclly
Fig. 1: A bivariate scalter d iagram of upper teothrow length (UTR) and maxillary breadth
(M B) for recent populations of Crocidura sicula from Sici ly, the Egadi Islands, and Gozo
(Measurements by R. Huuerer). The positions of the holotypes of Crocidura sicula and C
caudata (data taken from Vesmanis 1976) are indicated.
Sicily, Crocidura sicula Miller, 1901 and C caudata .Miller, 1901 fi t well into the range
of our materia! (Fig. l), except for the longer tail measurement of the holotype of
caudala; however, Vesmanis (1976) ha shown that Miller (1901, 1912) gave contradic-
tory information on the external measurements o f the holotype and that the some-
what high va lue for the tail length m ay be artificial. On the other hand we found
th at the small size of the holotype of sicula, taken by severa! authors as evidence for
the presence of a second species in Sicily, is not unique but is matched by other speci-
mens which ali show the diagnostic qualitative characters of the Sicilian shrew (see
below). Moreover, the measurements taken by A. L. Gardner (in Vesmanis 1976:
tab. 2) from the type specimens show that the sicula type is larger than the caudata
type in some cranial distances such as upper toothrow length (Fig. 1).
- Specimens from Gozo have the same karyotype as specimens from Sicily (Vogel
et al., in prep.).
- Recent specimens from the Egadi Islands and fossil specimens from Malta show
the same morphological characters (Fig. 2) as speci mens from Sicily and Gozo, alt-
hough ali populations differ in size (Hutterer, unpubl.; fig. 1). In a multivariate ana-
lysis (Sarà et al., in prep.) ali these populations group nicely together and are set
apart from a C russula sample from Sardinia.
We conclude that ali shrew populations mentioned in tab. l belong to the same
species, for which we select the name Crocidura sicula Miller, 1901. This name was
