Mesechinus miodon
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Mesechinus miodon is aspecies of hedgehog foundin the east of Ningxia and in the north of Shaanxi in northern China.
features
Mesechinus miodon is a steppe hedgehog with a head-trunk length of 12 to 22 cm, a 2.5 to 4.6 cm long tail and a weight of 230 to 750 g. The hind foot is 3.5 to 4 cm long, the ears are 2.4 to 3.5 cm long. The spines are 22 to 29 mm long. The body-close two thirds of the spines are light brown, followed by a 4 mm wide, black-brown ring and a light brown color at the tip. However, the tip can also be dark. The hair on the head and the sides of the body, legs and tail are dirty white to brownish. The belly is light to dirty white. The karyotype consists of a chromosome set of 2n = 44-48 chromosomes (FN = 84-92).
Habitat and way of life
The habitat of Mesechinus miodon is dry and desert-like. Yulinfu, the terra typica in Shaanxi, is characterized by yellow sand and brown rock. Only scattered tufts of sage and a few trees can be seen in the otherwise largely vegetation-free landscape. Little is known about the diet, reproductive behavior and other behavior of the animals. They eat different types of beetles and begin their hibernation in late October. The hedgehogs are most common in April and May, when the food is at its best.
Systematics
The hedgehog species was first described in 1908 by the British zoologist Oldfield Thomas together with Hugh's hedgehog ( Mesechinus hughi ). Thomas gave the species the name Erinaceus miodon , so assigned it to the small ear hedgehogs . The mammalogists Gordon Barclay Corbet and John Edwards Hill assigned the form to the Daurian hedgehog ( M. duricus ) as a subspecies in 1992 , while Rainer Hutterer assigned it as a subspecies to Hugh's hedgehog in 2005. According to an analysis of the complete mitochondrial DNA of the animals published in 2016, the species is more closely related to the real long-eared hedgehog ( Hemiechinus auritus ) than to the Daurian hedgehog. In 2018 it was again granted the rank of an independent species.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Huai-Sen Ai, Kai He, Zhong-Zheng Chen, Jia-Qi Li, Tao Wan, Quan Li, Wen-Huan Nie, Jin-Huan Wang, Wei-Ting Su & Xue-Long Jiang. 2018. Taxonomic Revision of the Genus Mesechinus (Mammalia: Erinaceidae) with Description of A New Species. Zoological Research. DOI: 10.24272 / j.issn.2095-8137.2018.034
- ↑ a b c d Troy Best: Family Erinaceidae (Hedgehogs and Gymnures). In: Don E. Wilson and Russell A. Mittermeier (eds.): Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Volume 8: Insectivores, Sloths and Colugos. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2018, ISBN 978-84-16728-08-4 , pp. 288–330 (pp. 326-327)
- ^ Thomas O. 1908. The duke of Bedford's zoological exploration in eastern Asia-XI. On mammals from the provinces of Shan-si and Shen-si, northern China. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 78 (4): 963-983.
- ^ Corbet GB, Hill JE. 1992. The Mammals of the Indomalayan Region: A Systematic Review. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1-488.
- ↑ Hutterer R. 2005. Subfamily erinaceinae. In: Don E. Wilson, DeeAnn M. Reeder (Eds.): Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. 3. Edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 .
- ↑ Fei Kong, Jia-Yan Wu & Jian-Min Guo: The complete mitochondrial genome of the small-toothed forest hedgehog Mesechinus miodon (Eulipotyphla: Erinaceidae). Mitochondrial DNA Part A, Volume 27, 2016 - Issue 6, doi: 10.3109 / 19401736.2015.1106514