New trapping method to survey for presence of the Etruscan shrew Suncus etruscus, the smallest mammal

Abstract

The presence of the Etruscan shrew Suncus etruscus is hard to prove where its predator, the barn owl Tyto alba, is absent, because most live traps are not triggered by it. I therefore developed a new trapping method involving a feeding period of 1 week followed by one night of trapping using modified Trip Trap traps. I show here in detail how I caught four Etruscan shrews in 2010 with 24 traps in the Valley of Dora Baltea (Piemonte, Italy). In 2011, another 11 Etruscan shrews were caught in Piemonte and Lombardia, Italy, and Ticino, Switzerland. The proposed new method is useful for establishing the presence of the species.

Assessment of terrestrial small mammals and a record of the critically endangered shrew Crocidura wimmeri in Banco National Park (Côte d’Ivoire)

“…Another species that we did not find in BNP was Crocidura obscurior, which is well known from AF (Meylan 1971, Hunkeler 1973, Vogel et al 1981 and also found 125 km west in Azagny National Park (Kang et al 2011 ). However, the traps used in this study were probably not suitable for capturing this small shrew species (Vogel 2012 ) because previous successful captures used pitfall traps (Vogel et al 1981 ). Our study also failed to capture Crocidura theresae Heim de Balsac 1968, which is trapped frequently 40 km to the west near Dabou (Meylan 1971 ), or the rare Sylvisorex megalura (Jentink 1888).…”

Doğu Anadolu’da Suncus etruscus Savi, 1822 (Mammalia: Soricidae)’un Dağılımına Dair Yeni Veri

“…Due to very low body weight of S. etruscus (1.5-3g) and its rarity [24], it is difficult to catch by classical traps [14,35]. The main predators of S. etruscus are owls and owl pellets can contain the remains of the species [12,36].…”

Zooming in on amphibians: Which is the smallest vertebrate in the world?

“…Scientists studying different kinds of animals are often asked by curious lay‐people who would be the largest and the smallest representative of the taxonomic group they study. This question seems to have an easy answer for a mammalogist who will promptly answer, on the one hand, the Blue Whale Balaenoptera musculus (Linnaeus, 1758) is not only the largest mammal in the world but most probably also the largest animal to ever live on the planet (Sears & Perrin, 2018), while on the other hand, the Etruscan shrew Suncus etruscus (Savi, 1822) and the Bumble‐bee Bat Craseonycteris thonglongyai Hill, 1974 jointly hold the position of smallest mammals in the world (Vogel, 2012). If the same question is asked to an amphibian specialist, he will surely identify the critically endangered Chinese giant salamander, Andrias davidianus (Blanchard, 1871), as the world's largest amphibian, but probably struggle to answer the smallest amphibian in the world.…”