Journal
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY
Volume 89, Issue 5, Pages 1257-1269Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1644/07-MAMM-A-254.1
Keywords
Afrotheria; cytogenetics; DNA sequencing; morphology; nomenclature; sengi; taxonomy
Categories
Funding
- South African National Research Foundation
- DST-NRF Centre for Invasion Biology
- South African National Research Foundation Scarce Skills Bursary
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Elephant-shrews (also called sengis, order Macroscelidea) are small bodied insectivorous mammals with a strictly African distribution. Fifteen Species currently are recognized, of which 9 occur in the southern African subregion. on the basis of molecular. cytogentic,. and morphological evidence, Elephantulits edwardii, the only strictly South African endemic species, is shown to comprise 21 closely related taxa. The new Elephantulus taxon described herein is from the central Nama-Karoo region of Western Cape and Northern Cape Provinces. Important genetic distinction,, underpin its delimitation. Sequence data from the mitochondrial cytochrome-b hypervariable control region as well as 7th intron of the nuclear fibrinogen gene show these 2 taxa to be reciprocally monophyletic. They are separated by 13.8% sequence divergence (uncorrected) based on the 2 mitochondrial segments, and 4.2% based on the nuclear intron sequences. In addition, fixed cytogenetic differences include a centromeric shift. heterochromatic differences on autosomal pairs 1-6, and the number of nucleolar organizer regions. The new species has several subtle morphological and phenotypic characters that distinguish it from its sibling species E. edwardii, the most striking of which is the Presence of a tail-tuft, as well as the color of the flanks and the ventral pelage. The abundance, detailed distribution of the new form, and its life-history characteristics are not known. and further studies clearly are needed to determine its conservation status.
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