Crocidura tenebrosa Esselstyn &amp; Achmadi &amp; Handika &amp; Swanson &amp; Giarla &amp; Rowe 2021, new species
Creators: name: Esselstyn, Jacob A.
name: Achmadi, Anang S.
name: Handika, Heru
name: Swanson, Mark T.
name: Giarla, Thomas C.
name: Rowe, Kevin C.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Soricomorpha
Soricidae
Crocidura
Crocidura tenebrosa

description: <i>Crocidura tenebrosa</i>, new species LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank. org:act: 856C039C-7F2E-4E38-8F16- 02E4376F8B11 HOLOTYPE: MZB 43006 (= LSUMZ 39272), an adult male collected by H. Handika on 21 February 2016. The specimen comprises a study skin, cleaned skull and skeleton, and frozen tissues. External measurements from the holotype are 100 mm × 37 mm × 11 mm × 8 mm = 6.28 g. The voucher specimen and a tissue sample will be permanently curated at MZB, with additional tissues retained by LSUMZ. TYPE LOCALITY: Indonesia, Sulawesi Utara, Bolaang Mondgondow, Passi Timur, Insil, Mt. Ambang, near Lake Aliyah; 0.76385° N, 124.41188° E, 1481 m elevation. ETYMOLOGY: <i>Tenebrosa</i> is Latin for “dark,” describing the overall color of this animal. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: Recorded only on Mt. Ambang in the north-east area of endemism (North Sulawesi Province) between 1400 and 1500 m elevation (fig. 25; table 3). Future surveys of other mountains in the north-central area of endemism and at the eastern extreme of the north-east area of endemism may extend the known range of this species. DIAGNOSIS: <i>Crocidura tenebrosa</i> is a very small (fig. 9; tables 2, 8), very dark shrew. The pelage and all areas of exposed skin (feet, tail, pinna, lips, and nose) are uniformly dark brown (fig. 27C). The overall dark pelage of this animal appears to be primarily from a darker proximal base of individual hairs. The mystacial vibrissae are black for most of their length, but unpigmented at the tips. The soles of the feet are mostly dark brown, but the areas that tend to accumulate pigment (base of the foot pads) are black (fig. 27C). The claws are translucent. The tail is short, with a notable density of applied hairs and a comparative abundance of bristles extending for three-fourths of the tail length. The skull is short, particularly the postpalatal portion, relative to its width (figs. 10, 28C) and to overall body size. Posteriorly, the skull is rounded, with a smoothly inflated and broad braincase (fig. 28C). The lambdoidal ridge is thin, but relatively high for such a delicate skull. The interorbital region is smoothly tapered, and the maxillary process is relatively inconspicuous, a consequence of the broad interorbital region. The palate is narrow, with a somewhat prominent dentition. The C (U3) and I3 (U2) are sub- equal in occlusal surface area. The parastyle of P4 is prominent. COMPARISONS: <i>Crocidura tenebrosa</i> is smaller than all Sulawesi shrews except the other members of the Small-Bodied Group, which are all comparable in body size. Among these, only <i>C. lea</i> and <i>C. baletei</i> are found on the northern peninsula, near the range of <i>C. tenebrosa</i>. <i>Crocidura tenebrosa</i> is readily distinguished from <i>C. lea</i> by its more dark and uniform color, shorter tail (fig. 9), and wider skull (figs. 10, 26). <i>Crocidura tenebrosa</i> is distinguished from its sister species, <i>C. baletei</i>, by its shorter tail (fig. 30; table 2), darker integument, shorter relative hind-foot length (fig. 17), and slightly narrower braincase, but wider interorbital region and rostrum (fig. 30; table 8). The ratio of the braincase breadth to interorbital width is slightly lower for <i>C. tenebrosa</i> than <i>C. baletei</i> (fig. 10). For additional details, see comparisons sections of <i>C. lea</i> and <i>C. baletei</i>, above. COMMENTS: We tested species limits with BPP between <i>Crocidura baletei</i> and <i>C. tenebrosa</i>, among these two species and <i>C. lea</i>, and among these three species and <i>C. levicula</i>. The alignments we analyzed contain: 6 and 13; 6, 13, and 12; and 6, 13, 12, and 34 individuals per species, respectively. Alignments are 91%, 87%, and 93% complete. All analyses supported all species with a posterior probability of 1. <i>Crocidura baletei</i> and <i>C. tenebrosa</i> are probable sister species (figs. 7, 8) and phenotypically similar. We define them as distinct species because they have modest differences in color and skull shape, they are divergent in their mitochondrial DNA (mean 0.076 Jukes-Cantor distance; supplementary data S4), they are reciprocally monophyletic in our UCE, mitochondrial, and nuclear exon trees (figs. 4, 5, 7, 8; supplementary data S6), and finally since both species have been recorded only above 1000 m elevation (fig. 13), they are likely isolated from each other by the low, dry habitat of the Gorontalo Divide. These two small-bodied highland endemics may be replaced across the northern peninsula lowlands by the similarly sized but paler colored and distantly related <i>C. lea</i>. SPECIMENS EXAMINED: Mt. Ambang (LSUMZ 39019–39023, 39025, 39267–39271, 39273, 39274; MZB 43006).
description: Published as part of <i>Esselstyn, Jacob A., Achmadi, Anang S., Handika, Heru, Swanson, Mark T., Giarla, Thomas C. &amp; Rowe, Kevin C., 2021, Fourteen New, Endemic Species Of Shrew (Genus Crocidura) From Sulawesi Reveal A Spectacular Island Radiation, pp. 1-109 in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2021 (454)</i> on pages 60-62, DOI: 10.1206/0003-0090.454.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/5788835