New Neogene anourosoricin shrews from northern Asia

Abstract

The shrews of the Anourosoricini tribe (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) were a broadly represented group of the subfamily Soricinae in the Neogene of Palaearctica and show high taxonomic diversity, up to now mostly in Europe. In the current study, the generic diversity of northern Asian anourosoricin is expanded to four: Crusafontina, Ishimosorex gen. nov., Paranourosorex and Anourosorex. Our investigation of original material from 22 Russian and Kazakh localities allowed us to describe fossil material for two endemic northern Asian genera, Ishimosorex gen. nov and Paranourosorex. Based on the dental features and stratigraphic position, we consider early Ishimosorex gen. nov. and later Paranourosorex to represent a single evolutionary lineage. The IshimosorexParanourosorex lineage existed from the Late Miocene (late Vallesian, MN 10) to early Pliocene (Ruscinian, MN 15) over a broad geographic range in northern Asia from southwestern Siberia to the Inner Mongolia region and consists of five species: Ishimosorex ishimiensis gen. et sp. nov., P. seletiensis, P. inexspectatus, Paranourosorex intermedius sp. nov. and P. gigas. Vladimir S. Zazhigin. Geological Institute (GIN), Russian Academy of Sciences, Pyzhevskii per. 7, Moscow, 109017, Russia. zazhvol@gmail.com Leonid L. Voyta. Zoological Institute (ZIN), Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 1, Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia. leonid.voyta@zin.ru