Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia, 41(1) 1998

Issue:

VOL 41(1) 1998

Keywords:

Plio-Pleistocene, Soricidae, Morphometries, Paleobiogeography, Sicily

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Asoriculus burgioi sp. nov. (Soricidae, Mammalia) from the Monte Pellegrino faunal complex (Sicily)

• Federico MASINI
• Maurizio SARÀ

Abstract:

A morphometric and taxonomic study o f a large shrew (Soricidae, Soricinae) found at the Monte Pellegrino РОС site has been carried out. All the Soricinae from the western Mediterranean islands were formerly described as belonging to the genus Nesiotites, but m orphometrics proved to be a rather poor method for discrimination between this genus and the continental Asoriculus, if other factors than size were taken into consid­eration. Multivariate analyses permit us to regard Asoriculus as small Nesiotites or vice versa; also the overall geological, paleobiogeographical and chronological body of data on the evolution of the Perityrrhenian region, rules out the hypothesis of close phyloge­netic relationships between the Sicilian shrew and the Balearic and Sardinia-Corsican Ne­siotites. These results allowed us to describe the new taxon as Asoriculus burgioi. This Early Pleistocene shrew must have originated by way of a long lasting endemisation pro­cess from its continental ancestor of unknown geographic origin. Asoriculus was in fact present both in continental Italy and in the Maghreb.