Piebald shrew

Piebald shrew [1]
Piebald shrew in Moscow Zoo
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1) [2]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Eulipotyphla
Family:	Soricidae
Genus:	Diplomesodon
Species:	D. pulchellus
Binomial name
Diplomesodon pulchellus (Lichtenstein, 1823)
Piebald shrew range
Synonyms
Sorex pulchellus Diplomesodon pulchellum

The piebald shrew (Diplomesodon pulchellus) is a shrew found in the Turan Lowland east of the Caspian Sea in Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

It grows to 2 inches (5.1 cm) to 2.75 inches (7.0 cm) in length, and usually hunts for insects and lizards at night.

Taxonomy

It is the only extant member of the genus Diplomesodon . In 2011, A. Cheke described a new and possibly extinct species based on a 19th-century manuscript: Diplomesodon sonnerati (Sonnerat's shrew). It was described again in 2018 to meet certain validity requirements of the ICZN code. ^[3] The American Society of Mammalogists considers D. sonnerati to be a subspecies of the piebald shrew, if it exists. ^[4]

References

1. Hutterer, R. (2005). Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 255–256. ISBN   978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC   62265494.
2. Tsytsulina, K.; Formozov, N. & Sheftel, B. (2017) [errata version of 2016 assessment]. "Diplomesodon pulchellus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2016 e.T41448A115186837. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T41448A22293795.en .
3. Cheke, A. (2011). "Sonnerat's shrew - evidence for a new and possibly extinct species in an early 19th century manuscript (Mammalia: Soricidae)" (PDF). Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 108 (2): 95–97.
4. "Diplomesodon pulchellus (H. Lichtenstein, 1823)". ASM Mammal Diversity Database. American Society of Mammalogists . Retrieved 2023-06-27.