369.

Dent's White-toothed Shrew

Crocidura denti

French: Crocidure de Dent / German: Dent-WeiRRzahnspitzmaus / Spanish: Musarana de Dent

Other common names: Dent's Shrew

Taxonomy. Crocidura jacksoni denti Dollman, 1915,

between Mawambi and Avakubi, Ituri Forest, DR Congo.

Crocidura denti seems to be very close or even polyphyletic with C. hildegardeae based on 16s rRNA sequences, but additional sampling is needed. West African specimens need to be investigated to determine if they are C. denti . Monotypic.

Distribution. SE Nigeria, Cameroon, S Central African Republic, N Gabon, N Republic of the Congo, N DR Congo, and WC Uganda as well as a disjunctset of records from Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Descriptive notes. Head—body 63 mm, tail 46 mm, ear 8 mm, hindfoot 13 mm; weight 8-12 g (one specimen). Dent's White-toothed Shrew is small. Dorsal pelage is dark brown, and venter is slate-gray. Tail is ¢.65-70% of head-body length, hairy, and bicolored, being brown above and paler below. Skull is stout, with short broad rostrum. There are three unicuspids.

Habitat. Swamp forests (Guinea), gallery forests in montane savannas (Adamawa Plateau from Nigeria and Cameroon border), and secondary forests (Masako Forest Reserve, DR Congo at elevations of 500-1500 m.

Food and Feeding. Dent’s White-toothed Shrew eats large amounts of termites (30% of stomach contents) and millipedes (136%), ants (11:4%), beetles (9:6%), spiders (8:5%), cockroaches (6%), true bugs (5-5%), lepidopterans (5-5%), fly larvae (43%), and grasshoppers (less than 1%) in Masako Forest, DR Congo.

Breeding. No information.

Activity patterns. No information.

Movements, Home range and Social organization. No information.

Status and Conservation. Classified as Least Concern on The IUCN Red List. Dent’s White-toothed Shrew has a wide distribution, faces no major threats, and is very common throughout much ofits distribution.

Bibliography. Dudu et al. (2005), Grubb et al. (1998), Heim de Balsac (1959), Hutterer (2016e), Hutterer & Joger (1982), Quérouil et al. (2005), Ray & Hutterer (2013b), Ziegler et al. (2002).