Crocidura obscurior Heim de Balsac 1958

Crocidura obscurior Heim de Balsac 1958, Mem. Inst. Fr. Afr. Noire, 53: 328.

Type Locality: Guinea, Mt. Nimba, montane prairie.

Vernacular Names: West African Pygmy Shrew.

Synonyms: Crocidura eburnea Heim de Balsac 1958 .

Distribution: Sierra Leone to Côte d’Ivoire; possibly Nigeria.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Described as a subspecies of bottegi (see Heim de Balsac and Meester, 1977), but its longer skull (Hutterer and Happold, 1983) and West African distribution distinguish it. Two different karyotypes have been described from Côte d’Ivoire, 2n = 36, FN = 56 (Maddalena and Ruedi, 1994), and 2n = 40, FN = 60 (Meylan, 1971; under bottegi). The problem needs to be analyzed.