The piebald shrew (''Diplomesodon pulchellum'') is a

shrew Shrews (family Soricidae) are small mole-like mammals classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are not to be confused with treeshrews, otter shrews, elephant shrews, West Indies shrews, or marsupial shrews, which belong to different fa ...

found in the

Turan Lowland The Turan Depression, Turan Lowland or Turanian Basin is a low-lying desert basin region stretching from southern Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan. Geography The lowland region lies to the east of the Caspian Sea and southeast o ...

east of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...

and

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...

. It grows to to in length, and usually hunts for

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s and

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...

s at night. It is the only extant member of the genus ''Diplomesodon''. In 2011, A. Cheke described a new and possibly extinct species based on a 19th-century manuscript: ''

Diplomesodon sonnerati Sonnerat's shrew (''Diplomesodon sonnerati'' or ''Crocidura sonnerati'') is a species of shrew that was first described by Pierre Sonnerat from Pondicherry somewhere in 1813. Description It was described as being larger than the commoner ''Suncu ...

'' (Sonnerat's shrew). It was described again in 2018 to meet certain validity requirements of the ICZN code.

References

*Animal, Smithsonian Institution, 2005. Mammals of Central Asia White-toothed shrews Mammals described in 1823 {{whitetoothed-shrew-stub