Crocidura

Crocidura[1]
Temporal range: Late Miocene–recent
Greater white-toothed shrew, C. russula
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Eulipotyphla
Family: Soricidae
Subfamily: Crocidurinae
Genus: Crocidura
Wagler, 1832
Type species
Sorex leucodon [2]
(Hermann, 1780)
Species

See text.

The genus Crocidura is one of nine genera of the shrew subfamily Crocidurinae. Members of the genus are commonly called white-toothed shrews or musk shrews, although both also apply to all of the species in the subfamily. With over 180 species, Crocidura contains the most species of any mammal genus.[3] The name Crocidura means "woolly tail", because the tail of Crocidura species are covered in short hairs interspersed with longer ones.[4]

They are found throughout all tropical and temperate regions of the Old World, from South Africa north to Europe, and east throughout Asia, as far east as the Malay Archipelago. One species, the possibly extinct Christmas Island shrew (C. trichura), also inhabited Christmas Island. They likely originated in Africa or Asia Minor during the Miocene, spread to Europe by the early Pliocene, and spread to eastern Asia and the Mediterranean by the Pleistocene.[5][6]

  1. ^ Hutterer, R. (2005). "Genus Crocidura". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 224–255. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
  2. ^ Wilson, D. E.; Reeder, D. M., eds. (2005). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
  3. ^ Jenkins, Paulina D.; Darrin P. Lunde & Clive B. Moncrieff (2009). "Descriptions of New Species of Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) from Mainland Southeast Asia, with Synopses of Previously Described Species and Remarks on Biogeography" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 331: 356–405. doi:10.1206/582-10.1. S2CID 84803490.
  4. ^ Palmer, T.S. Index generum mammalium : a list of the genera and families of mammals. p. 204.
  5. ^ "white-toothed shrew | mammal genus | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
  6. ^ Rofes, Juan; Cuenca-Bescós, Gloria (2011-01-01). "Evolutionary history and biogeography of the genus Crocidura (Mammalia, Soricidae) in Europe, with emphasis on Crocidura kornfeldi". Mammalian Biology. 76 (1): 64–78. doi:10.1016/j.mambio.2009.12.001. ISSN 1616-5047.