Ryukyu shrew | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Eulipotyphla |
Family: | Soricidae |
Genus: | Crocidura |
Species: | C. orii
|
Binomial name | |
Crocidura orii | |
Ryukyu Shrew range | |
Synonyms | |
Crocidura dsinezumi orii
[2] (
protonym) |
The Ryukyu shrew (Crocidura orii), also known as Orii's shrew, [1] is a species of mammal in the family Soricidae. It is endemic to the Amami Islands of Japan. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Orii's shrew was first described, as a subspecies of the Dsinezumi shrew (Crocidura dsinezumi orii), by Kuroda Nagamichi in 1924; he named it after his collector, Orii Hyōjirō, who had provided the skin and skull of a single male from Amami Ōshima. [2]: 3 This type specimen, damaged during the initial trapping, [2]: 3 was destroyed by fire in 1945. [4]: 22 In their 1951 checklist, Ellerman and Morrison-Scott listed the shrew instead as a subspecies of the Greater white-toothed shrew (Crocidura russula orii). [3]: 81 In 1961, after the recovery of a second individual from the stomach of a hime habu or Ryukyu Island pit viper (Ovophis okinavensis), Imaizumi Yoshinori elevated the shrew to species rank, based on morphological comparison with other species of Crocidura. [4] In 1998, after the study of five further specimens from Amami Ōshima and Tokunoshima, Motokawa Masaharu [ja] confirmed this taxonomic treatment. [5]