兽类生态与进化（蒋学龙）知识库

Blarinellini is a tribe of soricine shrews comprised ofnine fossil genera and one extant genus. Blarinellineshrews were once widely distributed throughoutEurasia and North America, though only membersof the Asiatic short-tailed shrew genus Blarinellacurrently persist (mostly in southwestern China andadjacent areas). Only three forms of Blarinella havebeen recognized as either species or subspecies.However, recent molecular studies indicated astrikingly deep divergence within the genus, implyingthe existence of a distinct genus-level lineage. Wesequenced the complete mitochondrial genomesand one nuclear gene of three Asiatic short-tailedand two North American shrews and analyzedthem morphometrically and morphologically. Ourmolecular analyses revealed that specimens ascribedto B. griselda formed two deeply diverged lineages,one a close relative to B. quadraticauda, whereasthe other—comprised of topotype specimens fromsouthern Gansu—diverged from other Blarinella inthe middle Miocene (ca. 18.2 million years ago (Ma),95% confidence interval=13.4–23.6 Ma). Althoughthe skulls were similarly shaped in both lineages, weobserved several diagnostic characteristics, includingthe shape of the upper P 4 . In considerationof the molecular and morphological evidence, werecognize B. griselda as the sole species of a newgenus, namely, Pantherina gen. nov. Interestingly,some characteristics of Pantherina griselda are moresimilar to fossil genera, suggesting it representsan evolutionarily more primitive form than Blarinella.Recognition of this new genus sheds light on thesystematics and evolutionary history of the tribeBlarinellini throughout Eurasia and North America.