Surdisorex schlitteri
| Surdisorex schlitteri | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Surdisorex schlitteri | ||||||||||||
| Peterhans , Stanley, Hutterer , Demos, & Agwanda, 2009 |
Surdisorex schlitteri is a species of African shrew that is endemic to the East African Mount Elgon on the border between Kenya and Uganda. The species is only known from a single specimen that was found dead in 1984 and originally classified as the African wood shrew ( Myosorex ). Over 20 years after the find, Surdisorex schlitteri was described as an independent species, placed in the genus Surdisorex and named after Duane Schlitter, a mammal who researched especially the African small mammals.
features
Surdisorex schlitteri has a dense, woolly fur with hair on the back that is nine millimeters long. Since the holotype was stored in alcohol for 20 years and at times not kept in the dark, the original coat color has faded and can no longer be determined. At the base the hair is dark brown, the ends of the hair are light. The front paws are large, the rear foot, including the claws, measures 16.1 mm. With a length of 28.6 mm, the tail reaches about 34% of the head-trunk length and is therefore relatively short for a shrew tail . The skull is triangular and typical of a shrew with a burrowing way of life. The eyes are small and covered by hair. Auricles are missing. Morphometrically , the skull of Surdisorex schlitteri is slightly smaller than that of the Aberdare vole ( Surdisorex norae ) but slightly larger than that of the Mount Kenya vole ( Surdisorex polulus ).
Habitat and way of life
The only known specimen of Surdisorex schlitteri was caught in a zone overgrown with heather at an altitude of 3150 meters on the east side of Mount Elgon. Like the other two species of the genus Surdisorex , Surdisorex schlitteri probably lives like a mole, hiding and digging and feeds primarily on earthworms .
literature
- Kerbis Peterhans, J., Stanley, WT, Hutterer, R., Demos, TC & Agwanda, B. 2009. A new species of Surdisorex Thomas, 1906 (Mammalia, Soricidae) from western Kenya. Bonn Zoological Contributions, Volume 56, Issue 3, Pages 175-183, Bonn, September 2009