Sorex volnuchini Ognev, 1922

Rainer Hutterer, 1993, Order Insectivora, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 69-130 : 122

Sorex volnuchini Ognev, 1922 . Ann. Mus. Zool. Akad. St. Petersbourg, 22:322.

TYPE LOCALITY: Ukraine, Krasnodarskii kr., Adygeiskaya A.O. [middle course], r. Kisha (see Pavlinov and Rossolimo, 1987) .

DISTRIBUTION: S Ukraine and Caucasus; possibly Turkey and N Iran.

COMMENTS: Subgenus Sorex . Formerly included in minutus but specimens from Caucasus have a slighly different karyotype (2n=40, NF=60) which led Kozlovskii (1973) and Sokolov and Tembotov (1989) to regard volnuchini as a full species. The karyotype of S. buchariensis is very similar ( Ivanitskaya et al., 1977). Morphologically, volnuchini is not distinguishable from minutus ; also, the karyotype of topotypical specimens needs to be studied to clarify the status of volnuchini .