Black-backed shrew
| Black-backed shrew | ||||||||||||
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Black- backed shrew ( Sorex coronatus ) |
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| Sorex coronatus | ||||||||||||
| Millet , 1828 |
The black- backed shrew ( Sorex coronatus ) is a mammal from the shrew family . It inhabits a relatively small distribution area in western Europe.
Mark
The black- backed shrew is very similar to the wood shrew in size and color; a reliable distinction is only possible on the basis of certain measuring sections on the lower jaw and on the basis of biochemical and chromosomal characteristics. The head-trunk length is up to 79 mm, the tail length up to 47 mm and the weight up to 9.8 g. As with the wood shrew, the top is black-brown, the flanks are light brown, and the bottom is gray. Compared to the wood shrew, the light flank coloration of black-backed shrews in western Germany extends further upwards, the dark back coloration is therefore narrower and sharper. In other parts of the distribution area the species is colored just like the wood shrew.
distribution
The black-backed shrew replaces the wood shrew in western Europe . The distribution area of the black-backed shrew includes south-western Europe from northern Spain via France , north-western Switzerland and the Benelux countries to central Germany as far as the Elbe . The most northeastern finds so far are from Thuringia and Saxony . The overlap zone of the distribution of the black-backed shrew and the wood shrew essentially comprises the Benelux countries and western Germany.
habitat
The black-backed shrew, like the wood shrew, colonizes forests, hedges, extensively used meadows and the edges of wetlands. In Baden-Württemberg , where both species occur together, the black-backed shrew tends to live in the cooler and less light areas.
Way of life
The diet consists mainly of earthworms , insects and their larvae and snails . A female usually has three to four litters a year - in Baden-Württemberg these comprised an average of 5.6 young.
Existence and endangerment
The black-backed shrew is common in its range; the world population is safe according to the IUCN .
swell
literature
- Anthony J. Mitchell-Jones, Giovanni Amori, Wieslaw Bogdanowicz, Boris Krystufek, PJH Reijnders, Friederike Spitzenberger, Michael Stubbe, Johan BM Thissen, Vladimiŕ Vohralik, Jan Zima: The Atlas of European Mammals. Poyser, London, 1999, ISBN 0-85661-130-1 , pp. 46-47.
- Erwin Stresemann (founder), Konrad Senglaub (ed.): Excursion fauna of Germany. Volume 3: Vertebrates. 12th, heavily edited edition. G. Fischer, Jena et al. 1995, ISBN 3-334-60951-0 , p. 370.
- Hendrik Turni: On the ecology and reproductive biology of the sibling species wood shrew (Sorex araneus L. 1758) and black-backed shrew (Sorex coronatus Millet 1828) (= forest protection areas Baden-Württemberg. Vol. 3. ISSN 1611-1680 ). Forestry Experimental and Research Institute Baden-Württemberg - Department of Forest Ecology, Freiburg 2003, (Simultaneously: Tübingen, University, dissertation, 2003), summary as PDF online, 149 kB .
Web links
- Sorex coronatus in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: Amori, G. (Small Nonvolant Mammal Red List Authority) & Temple, H. (Global Mammal Assessment Team), 2008. Retrieved on October 13 of 2008.