Who are you, Griselda? A replacement name for a new genus of the Asiatic short-tailed shrews (Mammalia, Eulipotyphla, Soricidae): molecular and morphological analyses with the discussion of tribal affinities

Anna A Bannikova; Paulina D Jenkins; Evgeniya N Solovyeva; Svetlana V Pavlova; Tatiana B Demidova; Sergey A Simanovsky; Boris I Sheftel; Vladimir S Lebedev; Yun Fang; Love Dalen; Alexei V Abramov

doi:10.3897/zookeys.888.37982

Who are you, Griselda? A replacement name for a new genus of the Asiatic short-tailed shrews (Mammalia, Eulipotyphla, Soricidae): molecular and morphological analyses with the discussion of tribal affinities

Zookeys. 2019 Nov 11:888:133-158. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.888.37982. eCollection 2019.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorobievy Gory, 1/12, Moscow, Russia 2 The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow Russia.
² Zoological Museum of Lomonosov Moscow State University, B. Nikitskaya 6, Moscow, Russia Zoological Museum of Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow Russia.
³ A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninskii pr. 33, Moscow, Russia A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow Russia.
⁴ Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100101, China Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Science Beijing China.
⁵ Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics of Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics of Swedish Museum of Natural History Stockholm Sweden.
⁶ Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 1, Saint-Petersburg 199034, Russia Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences Saint-Petersburg Russia.

Abstract

The first genetic study of the holotype of the Gansu short-tailed shrew, Blarinella griselda Thomas, 1912, is presented. The mitochondrial analysis demonstrated that the type specimen of B. griselda is close to several recently collected specimens from southern Gansu, northern Sichuan and Shaanxi, which are highly distinct from the two species of Asiatic short-tailed shrews of southern Sichuan, Yunnan, and Vietnam, B. quadraticauda and B. wardi. Our analysis of four nuclear genes supported the placement of B. griselda as sister to B. quadraticauda / B. wardi, with the level of divergence between these two clades corresponding to that among genera of Soricinae. A new generic name, Parablarinella, is proposed for the Gansu short-tailed shrew. Karyotypes of Parablarinella griselda (2n = 49, NFa = 50) and B. quadraticauda (2n = 49, NFa = 62) from southern Gansu are described. The tribal affinities of Blarinellini and Blarinini are discussed.

Keywords: Blarinellini; Blarinini; Parablarinella; karyotypic variation; molecular phylogeny.

Anna A. Bannikova, Paulina D. Jenkins, Evgeniya N. Solovyeva, Svetlana V. Pavlova, Tatiana B. Demidova, Sergey A. Simanovsky, Boris I. Sheftel, Vladimir S. Lebedev, Yun Fang, Love Dalen, Alexei V. Abramov.