HOME --> CLASS MAMMALIA
--> ORDER ERINACEOMORPHA
--> FAMILY Erinaceidae
--> SUBFAMILY Erinaceinae
GENUS Paraechinus
Author: | Trouessart, 1879. | Citation: | Rev. Zool. Paris, 7: 242. | Type Species: | Erinaceus micropus Blyth, 1846. | Comments: | Reviewed by Corbet (1988). Pavlinov and Rossolimo (1987:12-13) included Paraechinus in Hemiechinus as a valid subgenus, as did Frost et al. (1991:27), while Corbet (1988) argued for a generic separation of Paraechinus. Morshed and Patton (2002) provided DNA sequence data for animals from Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, representing Paraechinus aethiopicus and P. hypomelas. Their results show that Hemiechinus and Paraechinus are not sister taxa and are therefore best kept as distinct genera, but also show that P. aethiopicus and P. hypomelas are highly divergent (15.7%) from one another. Further support for a generic distinction of Paraechinus and Hemiechinus based on fingerprinting data was recently provided by Bannikova et al. (2002). Further molecular studies of the species united here under Paraechinus will add to our understanding of the phylogeny of this group, and may also lead to a further revision of the taxonomic arrangement of the species. |
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