Mammals of Korea: a review of their taxonomy, distribution and conservation status
Author
Jo, Yeong-Seok
Author
Baccus, John T.
Author
Koprowski, John L.
text
Zootaxa
2018
2018-11-19
4522
1
1
216
journal article
27944
10.11646/zootaxa.4522.1.1
58e0c7c5-75ec-4b1b-beb0-d01527f710f9
1175-5326
2610198
C24EFA8A-A5A0-4B06-A0A9-632F542B9529
Genus
Sorex
G. Fischer, 1814
Of the eight species traditionally listed as inhabiting
Korea
, we regarded
S. araneus
and
S. unguiculatus
as either misidentification or error of records. Therefore, we identified six species of
Sorex
in
Korea
.
Sorex araneus
has a wide distribution in the Palearctic, occurring from Britain through central, northern and eastern Europe and Asia as far east as Lake Baikal and as far north as the Arctic Coast. Since
Sorex isodon
was regarded as
Sorex araneus isodon
(
Hoffmann & Lunde 2008
)
,
S. araneus
has been listed as a Korean mammal (
Tate 1947
;
Won & Smith 1999
). However, the distribution of
S. araneus
does not extend into eastern Asia (
Hutterer 2005b
). Thus, we delisted
S. araneus
from the mammals of
Korea
.
Sorex unguiculatus
share morphological similarities with
S. isodon
such as large body size, dark-brown ventral color, and broad forefeet. The collection of specimens of
S. unguiculatus
in
North Korea
brings into question the problem of possible misidentification (
Han
et al.
2000
). The identification of these specimens is apparently problematic (
Han
et al.
2000
) and should be examined to validate their identity. For the moment, we chose to delist
S. unguiculatus
from Korean mammals.