SEAVR 2023: 030‐032
ISSN: 2424‐8525
Date of publication: 02 November 2023
Hosted online by ecologyasia.com

New locality record of the Asian House Shrew (Suncus murinus)
from Tablas Island, Romblon province, Philippines
Yu‐Sing LIN, Juniel G. LUCIDOS & Ace Kevin S. AMARGA
linyusing89329@gmail.com (Lin), ace_amarga061@yahoo.com (Amarga)

Collaborators: Desamarie Antonette P. Fernandez, Roman N. Fornesa.
Photographs by: Roman N. Fornesa.
Subject identified by: Yu‐Sing Lin, Ace Kevin S. Amarga.
Location: Campus orchard, Romblon State University (Main Campus), Odiongan municipality, Tablas Island,Philippines
Elevation: ~ 20m ASL.
Habitat: Fruit orchard.
Date and time: 09 January 2018 (collected from cage trap installed on 08 January 2018).
Identity of subject: Asian House Shrew, Suncus murinus (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Soricidae).
Description of record: During a Biodiversity Monitoring Training field exercise in 2018, an adult Suncus murinus
was captured in a cage trap (baited with fried coconut smeared with peanut butter) on the campus orchard ofRomblon State University, Odiongan.

Fig. 1. Adult Suncus murinus© Roman N. Fornesa

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Fig. 2. Fruit orchard, Romblon State University (Main Campus).

© Roman N. Fornesa

Remarks:
Following the morphological description provided by Heaney et al. (2010), the captured shrew was identified as
the Asian House Shrew (Suncus murinus). This species was first described as Sorex murinus by Linnaeus (1766)
from a specimen collected on the island of Java (Indonesia). The Asian House Shrew is native to South Asia andmost of Southeast Asia, and has been inferred to originate from the forests of central India (Ellerman 1961). The
inferred “Indian origin” of S. murinus was then supported by molecular data by Ruedi et al. (1996). Because ofhuman migration and intercountry trade, this species has been introduced to several places including parts ofAfrica, Comoros, Japan, Madagascar, Mauritius, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines (Hutterer & Tranier 1990;
Hutterer et al. 2016).
Suncus murinus is primarily an insectivore; it is known to feed on various invertebrates including Orthoptera andBlattodea (Advani & Rana 1981; Brown et al. 2013), but sometimes feeds on plant materials (Khanam et al. 2017).
In addition, S. murinus is a synanthropic species across its range. Due to its ability to tolerate anthropogenic
disturbance, this species can also be found in human settlements (Yong 1974). Because of this, S. murinus can act
as a reservoir for zoonotic pathogens and as a host to ectoparasites (Kundin et al. 1970; Rahelinirina et al. 2017;
Wang et al. 2017).
In the Philippines, this introduced species is widespread but specific localities and published island records areoften unavailable (Hutterer 2007). Heaney et al. (2010) listed the island records for S. murinus as follows: Caluya,Camiguin, Camiguin Norte, Cebu, Leyte, Luzon, Marinduque, Maybag, Mindanao, Mindoro, Negros, Palawan,
Panay, and Siquijor; there were no records listed from Tablas Island in this list, which is considered as the mostcomprehensive geographic checklist of Philippine mammals. In addition, there are no records of the species fromTablas in the listing compiled by Timm and Birney (1980) of mammals collected during the Menage ScientificExpedition (1890‐1893), despite the main islands of Romblon province (Romblon, Sibuyan, and Tablas) being
amongst the collection areas. Thus, to our knowledge, this paper represents the first formal published record ofS. murinus from Tablas Island.
Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank Almaiza Rodeo (RSU, Odiongan), Hannah Gan (RSU,Odiongan), Reymark Manoy (RSU, Odiongan), Roman N. Fornesa (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain) andDesamarie Antonette P. Fernandez (Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, France) for assistance during fieldtraining and specimen collection.

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