Abstract

Extraction of museum DNA from a unique collection of samples of the “Crocidura pergrisea” species complex, which comprises local endemics of Central and West Asia, allowed us to determine their inter- and intragroup relationships. The “pergrisea” species group, which comprises at least four species—C. arispa, C. pergrisea, C. ramona, and C. serezkyensis—is especially interesting among Crocidura endemics of Central and West Asian regions. Taxonomic value of a fifth species, C. armenica, has been unclear for a long time owing to a poor condition of skulls of both type specimens. By a micro-computed-tomography–based cybertaxonomic (CTtax) approach and developed "AProMaDesU" pipeline, we re-evaluated type material of the Armenian shrew and expanded the hypodigm of this species using three additional specimens. The MorphoBank Project 4964 includes cybertypes of holotype (ZIN 45277), paratype (ZIN 55321) of C. armenica, and holotype (NHMW 13284) of C. arispa. In addition, the project materials compose 2D and 3D data sets of 39 specimens of 14 shrew species: C. armenica, C. arispa, C. serezkyensis, C. caspica, C. lasiura, C. leucodon, C. gueldenstaedtii, C. phanluongi, C. sapaensis, C. shantungensis, С. sibirica, C. suaveolens, C. ex gr. kegoensis-zaitsevi, C. zarudnyi (Crocidurinae); and two outgroup species: Suncus murinus (Crocidurinae), Sorex minutissimus (Soricinae). Project 4964 is linked with the Project 3885 (http://dx.doi.org/10.7934/P3885 ).
The study has been funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, project no. 075-15-2021-1069. The microCT datasets were performed using equipment of the Resource Centre for X-ray Diffraction Studies of the Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russia), and Core Facilities Centre of the Natural History Museum Vienna (Vienna, Austria).