Myosorex meesteri Taylor & Kearney & Kerbis Peterhans & Baxter & Willows-Munro 2013, SP. NOV.
Creators: name: Taylor, Peter John
name: Kearney, Teresa Catherine
name: Kerbis Peterhans, Julian C.
name: Baxter, Roderick M.
name: Willows-Munro, Sandi
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2013
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Soricomorpha
Soricidae
Myosorex
Myosorex meesteri

description: MYOSOREX MEESTERI SP. NOV.  MEESTER’ S FOREST SHREW   Holotype   
 DM 4693, an adult female collected by Teresa Kearney, Albert Kumirai, Peter Taylor, and Peter Wright on 10 December 1995. The specimen is represented by a skin and skull in good condition. The external measurements are as follows (in mm): total length 120; tail length 40, hindfoot length (cum unguis) 15; ear 10. Body mass was 12 g. The extremely small cranial size is indicated by cranial measurements (in mm) as follows (see abbreviations under Material and methods): CI 20.6; PPL 9.46; UTR 8.82, LIW 4.05; BW 6.22; GW 10.3; LTR 8.1; M3L 1.48; M3 W 0.8; P4–M3 5.11. The skull, dentition, and mandible are illustrated in Figure 7. The anterior margin of the medial palatal foramen overlaps with the posterior margins of the two lateral foramina (Fig. 7). The fourth upper unicuspid is tiny and bordered by teeth, which are almost touching because of the curved extension of the parastyle of the third upper unicuspid (Fig. 7). The pelage coloration is brownish rather than blackish above and below, with pale hindfoot and bicoloured tail, similar to M. varius.   
 Type locality   
Chingamwe Estates, 15 km south-east of Juliasdale, Inyanga Mountains, eastern Zimbabwe (18.4625°S, 32.753°E). The specimen was trapped with a Sherman trap in tall grassland bordering a young pine plantation.  
 Paratypes   
An additional 21 shrews were collected from the same series (DM: 4641, 4642, 4643, 4644, 4645, 4646, 4647, 4648, 4651, 4652, 4655, 4656, 4664, 4665, 4678, 4679, 4680, 4688, 4694, 5003, 5004).  
 Referred specimens: See the Appendix.   
 Etymology   
 This species is named after J.A.J. ‘Waldo’ Meester who made a significant contribution to African mammalogy, most particularly through his authorship of two landmark volumes: Mammals of Africa: an Identification Manual (1971–1977) and Classification of Southern African Mammals (1986). He was a shrew specialist whose early work drew attention to the enigmatic taxonomic status of Myosorex from Zimbabwe (Meester, 1958), which we now name in his honour.   
 Diagnosis   
 Individuals of this species can be readily distinguished from South African Myosorex species by the presence of a ‘tiny’ fourth upper unicuspid tooth, bordered by teeth that are touching or almost touching because of a curved extension of the parastyle of the anterior premolar (Fig. 6; Table 7). This feature, together with small cranial size (Fig. 4; Table 3), is shared with Tanzanian species (M. geata and M. kihaulei); however, M. meesteri sp. nov. is clearly distinguished on molecular and biogeographical grounds from the Tanzanian species (Fig. 2).   
 Description   
 This is a small species of Myosorex, particularly in cranial dimensions (Table 3). In its pelage colour it is most like M. varius, having brownish rather than blackish dorsal pelage and relatively pale hindfeet and a bicoloured tail. Similarly, in its predominantly overlapping medial and lateral palatal foramina it is most like M. varius; however, in a few cases (13%) the foramina do not overlap or the medial foramina may be missing (8%; Table 7).   
 Distribution and biology   
The species is endemic to the Eastern Zimbabwean montane forest–grassland mosaic ecoregion of the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and of Mount Gorongosa, Gorongosa National Park of Mozambique. The type series from Inyanga Mountains of Zimbabwe were all collected in moist grasslands, sometimes bordering a dam or pine plantations, but never in forest. On Mount Gorongosa, it was by far the most common small terrestrial mammal caught, comprising almost 50% of all captures. It is restricted to the moist montane forest (1120–1580 m a.s.l) and alpine meadows (1680–1700 m a.s.l.), and is not found in the drier scrubbier areas, nor even amid the gallery forest below (elevation 790–940 m a.s.l.).
description: Published as part of Taylor, Peter John, Kearney, Teresa Catherine, Kerbis Peterhans, Julian C., Baxter, Roderick M. & Willows-Munro, Sandi, 2013, Cryptic diversity in forest shrews of the genus Myosorex from southern Africa, with the description of a new species and comments on Myosorex tenuis, pp. 881-902 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 169 (4) on pages 897-898, DOI: 10.1111/zoj.12083, http://zenodo.org/record/5291877