Abstract
Pelage color variants have been documented in some small mammals, but there is not any reported about coat color variation in shrews. Here, pelage color variants of the two sibling species (Sorex cylindricauda and Sorex bedfordiae) were uncovered in different sampling sites. Our data may initiate new interest to pelage color variants in small mammals. Furthermore, the classification of two striped shrews has been controversial for several decades. We conducted a detailed examination of the morphometric characters for the two sibling shrews. Significant differences between the two species morphologically confirmed the two-species classification status.
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Acknowledgments
We appreciate the constructive comments and suggestions from the two anonymous reviewers. We would like to acknowledge Mr. Rui Liao, Dr. Bo Li, and Dr. Zhixin Wen for collecting the samples in the field. We also thank Prof. Xuelong Jiang and Prof. Jianghong Ran for providing samples for this study. This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 30970330; no. 31272274), Applied Basic Research Program of Sichuan Science and Technology Department (no. 2013JY0170), and Experimental Technology and Management of Sichuan Normal University (no. SYJS2013-12).
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Communicated by: Jan M. Wójcik
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Fig. S1
Distribution map and sampling sites of the two species examined in this study (JPEG 422 kb)
Fig. S2
Representative pelage color variation in museum collections in S. bedfordiae from Erlang Mountains in Tianquan County (JPEG 689 kb)
Table S1
(DOC 113 kb)
Table S2
(XLS 30 kb)
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Chen, S., Liu, Y., Sun, Z. et al. Morphometric and pelage color variation of two sibling species of shrew (Mammalia: Soricomorpha). Acta Theriol 59, 407–413 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-014-0176-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-014-0176-y