Ryukyu shrew facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Ryukyu shrew |
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| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Crocidura
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| Species: |
orii
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| Ryukyu Shrew range | |
| Synonyms | |
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Crocidura dsinezumi orii (protonym) |
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The Ryukyu shrew (Crocidura orii), also known as Orii's shrew, is a species of mammal in the family Soricidae. It is endemic to the Amami Islands of Japan. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Taxonomy
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. This type specimen, damaged during the initial trapping, was destroyed by fire in 1945. In their 1951 checklist, Ellerman and Morrison-Scott listed the shrew instead as a subspecies of the Greater white-toothed shrew (Crocidura russula orii). 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. In 1998, after the study of five further specimens from Amami Ōshima and Tokunoshima, Motokawa Masaharu [ja] confirmed this taxonomic treatment.
