The Sunda shrew (''Crocidura monticola'') is a
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of
mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
in the family
Soricidae found in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
and
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
.
Populations from the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo are now considered to belong to ''Crocidura neglecta'' The widespread species ''C. neglecta sensu lato'', exhibits high levels of diversity. The divergence among populations from Peninsular Malaysia, west Borneo and north-east Borneo is higher than that among many other recognised related species, suggesting that these might deserve specific status. Species delimitation based on private allele sharing also supports the species-level recognition of these populations and perhaps also that of the Bukit Baka population. However, these have not been described due to lack of morphological evidence and the small number of localities included in species delimitation analyses. An increase in specimen collection and geographic coverage will be needed to characterize the fine-scale distribution of this diversity and resolve the taxonomy of this group.
[Arlo Hinckley, Miguel Camacho-Sanchez, Manuel Ruedi, Melissa T R Hawkins, Madeleine Mullon, Anna Cornellas, Fred Tuh Yit Yuh, Jennifer A Leonard, Evolutionary history of Sundaland shrews (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae: Crocidura) with a focus on Borneo, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2021;, zlab045, https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab045]
References
It is found in the forest floor of the rainforest as it is mice and crawls on the floor. It is an omnivore and feeds mostly on plants and leaves that fall from the emergent and the canopy layers.
It is 25 cm long and weighs less than 8g which is quite surprising for such an animal that looks quite heavy.
Crocidura
Mammals of Indonesia
Mammals of Malaysia
Mammals of Timor
Mammals of Borneo
Mammals described in 1870
Taxa named by Wilhelm Peters
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
{{whitetoothed-shrew-stub