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Crowned Shrew | Sorex coronatus
Tweekleurige bosspitsmuis | Musaraña De Millet
The Crowned Shrew, also known as Millet's Shrew, is a western European Sorex, described by Millet in 1828 from Blou in the French department of Maine-et-Loire. The species ranges from northern Spain through France to Switzerland, the Low Countries, western Germany and Jersey. Externally it is almost indistinguishable from the Common Shrew; the two species do, however, differ clearly in their chromosomes. Over most of its range it is common.
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Tracks
No signs are unique to the Crowned Shrew. Narrow runs in the litter layer and under dense vegetation, droppings and footprints are the same as those of the Common Shrew. High, shrill squeaks from the grass indicate a shrew but not the species. Most records come from owl pellets, especially those of the Barn Owl: the lower jaws of the two species can be separated by measurement and experience, and much of the distribution map is based on this.
Identification
A medium-sized Sorex with a pointed snout, small dark eyes, long whiskers and red-brown tooth tips. The back is dark brown to blackish brown, the underside pale grey. In adults the dark back forms a contrasting 'mantle' above the pale grey flanks and belly. In young animals this contrast is absent and the brown back merges gradually into the pale belly. The tail is bicoloured and measures a third to two-thirds of head-body length. Where the species occurs together with the Common Shrew, it is on average smaller and more contrastingly marked, but the differences overlap. The karyotype is 2n = 22 in females and 23 in males. Head-body 5.5 to 8.5 cm, tail 3.2 to 5.7 cm, weight 6 to 13 g.
Similar species
The Common Shrew (Sorex araneus) can hardly be separated from the Crowned Shrew on external characters. The difference between a two-toned and a three-toned coat is not reliable: the Common Shrew may also have only a weak flank band, and young animals of both species are evenly coloured. Certainty comes from chromosomes or DNA, and in owl pellets from the shape and measurements of the lower jaw, which with experience give a reliable separation. In northern Spain the Iberian Shrew (Sorex granarius) also occurs; it too cannot be distinguished in the field. Recognisable are the Eurasian Pygmy Shrew (Sorex minutus), much smaller with a relatively long, thick tail, the Water Shrew (Neomys fodiens), larger and black with a sharply demarcated pale belly, and the Greater White-toothed Shrew (Crocidura russula), greyish brown with white teeth, projecting ears and long scattered hairs on the tail.
Habitat
All types of grassland and woodland, as long as there is ground-covering vegetation: tall grass, woods with ferns, hedges and scrub, but also field margins, road verges, heathland, dunes and gardens. Unlike related species it avoids wet ground. In the south and in mountains it lives in montane forest of conifers and broadleaved trees, in the lowlands in broadleaved woodland. The species depends on a litter or herb layer that provides cover and food.
Where the animal is most at home, classified with EUNIS — the European standard for habitats.
Distribution
Endemic to Europe: northern Spain, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, western Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, western Germany and the Channel Island of Jersey. On its eastern and northern edge the range borders that of the Common Shrew, with overlap zones in which both species occur. At the northern edge, in the Netherlands, the species is scattered, mainly on the Pleistocene sandy soils, in Limburg and in parts of Zeeland; there it is absent from the Wadden Islands and from the north and west of the country. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
- Native
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
Way of life
The Crowned Shrew is active by day and by night, evenly distributed between the two and without seasonal change; its total active time per day is somewhat longer than in the Common Shrew. It searches continuously for food and dies after about three hours without eating. Snails and slugs occur frequently in its stomach contents, together with larval and adult beetles, spiders and aphids. The species is solitary, but in behavioural tests shows more social behaviour than the Common Shrew, with ritualised aggression more frequent than direct attack. In the field, males have been observed to remain in the home ranges of lactating females without helping to rear the young; this differs from the promiscuous mating system of the Common Shrew. Pregnant females have been found from March to September, with four to seven embryos; in northern Spain between May and August, with four or five embryos. There is no hibernation.
Where and when to look
A shrew of this type seen in the field cannot be assigned to this species with certainty. Within the part of the range where only the Crowned Shrew is known, it is very probably this species; in the overlap zones, record it as 'Common/Crowned Shrew'. The most reliable data come from Barn Owl pellets: dissected pellets whose lower jaws have been identified by an experienced person form the basis of the distribution map. Shrews are best heard in summer and autumn along rough grass margins and hedgerows. Live-trapping shrews requires a licence in most countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium, and traps must be checked frequently because of the animals' high energy needs.
Conservation status
Least Concern (LC, 2024) on the IUCN Red List. The species is common or abundant in all parts of its range except the northern edge; on the Dutch Red List of 2020 it is listed as not currently threatened. As with other shrews, local declines follow the loss of a dense herb and litter layer through intensive mowing, the removal of hedgerows and rough vegetation, and the loss of woodland edges. The species is listed on Appendix III of the Bern Convention.
Scientific name
Sorex coronatus | Millet, 1828
Millet described the species in 1828 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. Sorex is the Latin word for a shrew. coronatus is Latin for 'crowned', from corona, 'wreath, crown'; Millet does not say what he meant by it. The specimen the first description was based on came from France, Maine-et-Loire.