First evidence of the occurrence of the Pygmy white-toothed shrew, Suncus etruscus (Savi, 1822), on the island of Lipari, Aeolian archipelago (Italy)

Abstract

The island of Lipari (388299 N–148569 E) is located in the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea, 30 km off of northeast Sicily and 80 km from the southwest coast of Calabria. Lipari is the main island (36.7 km2, 602 m a.s.l.) of the Aeolian Archipelago, a volcanic arc originated during the Middle Pleistocene, which also includes six other islands and several small islets. The climate is typically Mediterranean, with an annual average temperature of 18.38C and an average rainfall of 620 mm/year. At the present time, the vegetation is represented by Mediterranean maquis mainly referred to the Erico arboreae-Arbutetum unedonis Molinier, and some degraded aspects, due to the impact of previous agricultural use of the territory, which covered the ancient man-made terraces widespread on the island (Lo Cascio and Navarra 2003). Despite the fact that several scientific investigations were carried out in the Aeolian Islands even during recent years, no report has ever been obtained on the occurrence of any representatives of the Erinaceomorpha and Soricomorpha taxonomic groups, with the exception of the western hedgehog, Erinaceus europaeus L., 1758, which was introduced in the island of Alicudi around the beginning of the 1980s (cf. Cristaldi et al. 1987, Lo Cascio and Navarra 2003). In particular, the mammalian fauna up to now recorded for Lipari was only represented by Tadarida teniotis (Rafinesque-Schmaltz, 1814), Pipistrellus kuhli (Kuhl, 1819), Oryctolagus cuniculus (L., 1758), Eliomys quercinus liparensis Kahmann, 1960, Rattus rattus (L., 1758) and Mus domesticus (Schwarz and Schwarz, 1943) (cf. Kahmann 1960, Cristaldi and Federici 1980, Cristaldi 1983, Cristaldi et al. 1987, Cristaldi and Amori 1988, Zava and Lo Valvo 1991, Zava et al. 1994, Lo Cascio and Navarra 2003). The aim of this short note is to present for the first time the evidence of the occurrence of the Pygmy white-toothed shrew, Suncus etruscus (Savi, 1822) in the island, which was discovered during the present research.