The northern white-breasted hedgehog (''Erinaceus roumanicus'') is a species of

hedgehog A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introductio ...

Distribution

The range of the species extends in the west as far as

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

and the

former Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...

, and south to

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and the

Adriatic Islands There are more than 1200 islands in the Adriatic Sea, 69 of which are inhabited. A recent study by the Institute of Oceanography in Split (2000) shows that there are 1246 islands: 79 large islands, 525 islets, and 642 ridges and rocks. The Italia ...

, including populations on

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

Corfu Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...

and

Rhodes Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...

. It is found eastwards through

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, as far east as the

Ob River } The Ob ( rus, Обь, p=opʲ: Ob') is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia; and together with Irtysh forms the world's List of rivers by length, seventh-longest river system, at . It forms at the confluence of the Biya (river), Biya ...

in Siberia. It is widespread throughout this range, and there are no signs of a significant population decline.

Taxonomy

Taxonomically, it was for a time considered to be a subspecies of '' E. europaeus'', and later a subspecies of '' E. concolor''. Since the 1990s, it has been considered a separate species in its own right, following new genetic and morphological studies, with five subspecies - ''E. roumanicus roumanicus'', ''E. roumanicus bolkayi'', ''E. roumanicus drozdovskii'', ''E. roumanicus nesiotes'', and ''E. roumanicus pallidus''.

Parasites

The species is a common

synanthrope A synanthrope (from the Greek σύν ''syn'', "together with" + ἄνθρωπος ''anthropos'', "man") is a member of a species of wild animal or plant that lives near, and benefits from, an association with human beings and the somewhat artific ...

and is known to carry not only the hedgehog tick, ''

Ixodes hexagonus ''Ixodes hexagonus'', also known by the common name hedgehog tick, is a tick species in the genus ''Ixodes''. It is a parasite of the European hedgehog The European hedgehog (''Erinaceus europaeus''), also known as the West European hedgehog ...

'', but also ''

Ixodes ricinus ''Ixodes ricinus'', the castor bean tick, is a chiefly European species of hard-bodied tick. It may reach a length of when engorged with a blood meal, and can transmit both bacterial and viral pathogens such as the causative agents of Lyme disea ...

'', the most common European tick species. They are known also to host zoonotic Bartonellae species.

References

northern white-breasted hedgehog The northern white-breasted hedgehog (''Erinaceus roumanicus'') is a species of hedgehog. Distribution The range of the species extends in the west as far as Poland, Austria and the former Yugoslavia, and south to Greece and the Adriatic Islands ...

Mammals of Azerbaijan Mammals of Europe Mammals of Russia

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