The origin of the osorian shrew (crocidura osorio) from gran canaria resolved using mtDNA

Abstract

Crocidura osorio was first described in 1989 as an endemic species confined to the islands of Gran Canaria and (possibly) Tenerife. However phenotypic differences between C osorio and other species are small leading to doubts over its taxonomic status. This is resolved using mtDNA. Over 1120 base pairs from the cytochrome b and 16S rRNA regions of the mtDNA of C osorio were compared with homologous sequence from European C. russula and C. suaveolens. Small polymorphisms, typical of (or even smaller than) those often described within species, were observed within the former region although the latter region was identical between all compared sequences. We conclude that the Gran Canarian shrew is a C. russula that is likely to have been introduced since the Spanish conquest of the Canaries.