Data Paper |
Corresponding author: Valeriy V. Stakheev ( stvaleriy@yandex.ru ) Academic editor: Raquel López-Antoñanzas
© 2020 Nikolay N. Tovpinets, Igor L. Evstafiev, Valeriy V. Stakheev, Andrey A. Lissovsky.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Tovpinets NN, Evstafiev IL, Stakheev VV, Lissovsky AA (2020) Checklist of rodents and insectivores of the Crimean Peninsula. ZooKeys 948: 121-127. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.948.51275
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A dataset comprising 6806 records is presented of 17 (of total 24) rodent and insectivore species from the Crimean Peninsula collected during a 35-year period. All records are stored in the Public Mammal Database (Mammals of Russia; http://rusmam.ru/). The density of occurrence points allows visual evaluation of species distribution, even on large-scale maps. Each record contains the species name, locality description, and geographic coordinates, coordinate accuracy, date and author of the record, data source, and the method of species identification.
Crimean Peninsula, insectivores, rodents, spatial distribution
Small mammals [in particular, Rodentia (rodents) and Eulipotyphla (insectivores)] represent one of the most substantial components of the majority of terrestrial ecosystems. Being among the most diverse and abundant mammalian orders, rodents and insectivores play a critical role in maintaining the ecosystem. They also serve as reservoirs of many infectious diseases of humans, livestock, and wildlife being thus important from the perspective of public health (
Crimean fauna is heterogeneous and consists of two sharply different groups of species, steppe and mountain (
The history of mammalogical studies in the Crimean Peninsula has earlier been described by
Here, we publish a checklist of rodent and insectivore records across the Crimean Peninsula for the first time. This checklist was based on comprehensive surveys of small mammals carried out from 1983 until 2018.
Insectivores are represented in Crimea by six species belonging to two families (
Family Erinaceidae Fischer, 1814
Family Soricidae Fischer, 1814
Rodents are represented by 18 species belonging to 5 families.
Family Sciuridae Fischer, 1817
Family Sminthidae Brandt, 1855
Family Allactagidae Vinogradov, 1925
Family Cricetidae Fischer, 1817
Family Muridae Illiger, 1811
Six species (Erinaceus roumanicus, Sciurus vulgaris, Spermophilus pygmaeus, Allactaga major, Ondatra zibethicus, and Ellobius talpinus) reported earlier for the Crimean Peninsula (
In general, rodent and insectivore fauna of the Crimean Peninsula is depauperated. For instance, some species that are common in neighboring regions with similar environment such as Taman Peninsula and the northeast of Black Sea coast, are absent from Crimea. These include shrews of the superspecies Sorex araneus Linnaeus, 1758, the greater blind mole rat Spalax microphthalmus Güldenstädt, 1770, and Strands’s birch mouse Sicista strandi Formosov, 1931 (
From an ecological perspective, xerophilous species comprise the largest group, it includes nine species. Some xerophiles (Spermophilus pygmaeus, Allactaga major, Cricetulus migratorius, Ellobius talpinus, Microtus socialis, and Mus spicilegus) occur only in plains and submontane habitats, whereas other species (Sylvaemus witherbyi and Crocidura leucodon) invade mountains as well.
Dendrophile rodents and insectivores are represented by four species only (S. vulgaris, Neomys anomalus, Sylvaemus flavicollis, and Sylvaemus uralensis). Of them, the only true arboreal species S. vulgaris is not an aboriginal Crimean species but has been introduced to the peninsula.
A large group of species is associated with human settlements. Eleven species (Crocidura suaveolens, Sylvaemus witherbyi, Sylvaemus uralensis, Sylvaemus flavicollis, Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, Rattus rattus, Microtus obscurus, Microtus socialis, Cricetus cricetus, Cricetulus migratorius) have repeatedly been recorded in residential areas (
The dataset contains 6806 records of rodent and insectivore species from the Crimean Peninsula (Table
Number of records of rodents and insectivores collected in the Crimean Peninsula.
№ | Species | Number of records |
---|---|---|
1 | Sorex cf. minutus (S. minutus or S. volnuchini) | 42 |
2 | Neomys anomalus | 10 |
3 | Crocidura leucodon | 108 |
4 | Crocidura suaveolens | 649 |
5 | Sicista lorigera | 38 |
6 | Cricetulus migratorius | 337 |
7 | Cricetus cricetus | 9 |
8 | Microtus socialis | 787 |
9 | Microtus arvalis | 7 |
10 | Microtus rossiameridionalus | 3 |
11 | Microtus cf. arvalis (M. arvalis and M. rossiameridionalus) | 571 |
12 | Sylvaemus uralensis | 579 |
13 | Sylvaemus witherbyi | 2021 |
14 | Sylvaemus flavicollis | 308 |
15 | Mus musculus | 1082 |
16 | Mus spicilegus | 247 |
17 | Rattus norvegicus | 7 |
18 | Rattus rattus | 1 |
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Eulipotyphla, Rodentia
Family: Erinaceidae, Soricidae, Sminthidae, Cricetidae, Muridae
Genus: Sorex, Neomys, Crocidura, Sicista, Cricetulus, Cricetus, Microtus, Sylvaemus, Mus, Rattus
Species: Sorex cf. minutus, Neomys anomalus, Crocidura leucodon, Crocidura suaveolens, Sicista lorigera, Cricetulus migratorius, Cricetus cricetus, Microtus socialis, Microtus arvalis, Microtus rossiameridionalus, Sylvaemus uralensis, Sylvaemus witherbyi, Sylvaemus flavicollis, Mus musculus, Mus spicilegus, Rattus norvegicus, Rattus rattus
The data set covers the entire Crimean Peninsula. Coordinate box: 44°23'N to 46°13'N Latitude; 32°28'E to 36°38'E Longitude.
The data were collected from 1983 to 2018.
The major part of the data set was obtained during epizootiological survey of the Crimean Peninsula. Mammals were captured using small spring snap-traps (120 × 55 mm) deposited for one night in a line of 50–100 traps with a distance of 5 m between them and baited with bread and sunflower oil. The voucher specimens are stored in the personal collection N. Tovpinets, Simpheropol (zootonik@gmail.com). Data on Cricetus cricetus, Rattus norvegicus, and Rattus rattus were obtained via direct observations and/or detection of the traces of their activities (tracks, burrows, etc.).
Each record contains species name after
The dataset is compiled in the public database ‘Mammals of Russia’ (http://rusmam.ru/;
Character encoding: UTF-8;
Language: Russian/English;
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International = CC BY 4.0;
Digital identifiers: http://rusmam.ru/sample/records?id=2_b9486
We thank B. Krasnov and N. Nedialkov for their valuable comments and corrections of the manuscript.
This study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation; Grant number 18-14-00093.
Cadastre of Rodents and Insectivores of the Crimean Peninsula
Data type: morphological, genetic
Explanation note: The dataset contains 6806 records of 17 (out of 23) rodent and insectivore species from the Crimean Peninsula, collected during a 35-year period mainly during epizootological surveys of the peninsula.