Fox musk shrew
| Fox musk shrew | ||||||||||||
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| Crocidura foxi | ||||||||||||
| Dollman , 1915 |
The Fox musk shrew ( Crocidura foxi ), also known as the Nigerian savannah shrew, is a species of shrew from the genus of the white-toothed shrew ( Crocidura ). The species name refers to the Reverend George T. Fox, who led a mission in northern Nigeria and collected the first specimen of this species, described by Guy Dollman in 1915.
features
The Fox Musk Shrew is a large to very large species of shrew with a head-to-trunk length of 91 to 114 mm. The tail length is 53 to 72 mm, the hind foot length 15.5 to 18.5 mm, the ear length 8 to 11 mm, the skull length 23.5 to 25.8 mm and the skull width 8.8 to 11.2 mm. The weight is 13 to 22 g. The back fur is chocolate brown to rust brown. The hair is gray at the base and brown at the top. The peritoneum is gray, with the hair sometimes having white tips. The color of the peritoneum contrasts sharply with the color of the dorsal fur. The flanks, chest and throat are gray. The relatively short tail makes up 50 to 63 percent of the head-trunk length. It is light and about 20 to 35 percent covered with coarse hairs. The skull is flat. The first upper incisor is long and hook-shaped. The first cusp is longer than the second and third. The third molar is small. The karyotype and the number of teats are unknown.
Distribution area
The Fox musk shrew is found in Burkina Faso , Chad , Ivory Coast , Ghana , Guinea , Mali , Nigeria , Senegal, and Sudan .
habitat
In Nigeria, the fox musk shrew inhabits savannas, secondary scrubland, farmland, and freshly burned, rocky grasslands. In Senegal, it can be found in cultivated irrigation areas between rows of dunes and in marshy grasslands. In the Niayes region north of Dakar , it shares its territories with Hubert's multi- teat mouse ( Mastomys huberti ) and the red woolly rat ( Dasymys rufulus ).
status
The Fox Musk Shrew is rated by the IUCN as "not endangered" ( least concern ). In Nigeria it is considered locally frequent.
literature
- Jean-Marc Duplantier, Laurent Granjon: Fox's shrew. In: Jonathan Kingdon, Thomas M. Butynski, David CD Happold, Meredith Happold (Eds.): Mammals of Africa. Volume 4: Hedgehogs, shrews and bats. Bloomsbury, London et al. 2013, ISBN 978-1-4081-2254-9 , pp. 78-79.
Web links
- Crocidura foxi in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2012. Posted by: Rainer Hutterer, 2008. Accessed August 6, 2013.