A new species of shrew moles, genus Uropsilus Milne-Edwards, 1871 (Mammalia, Eulipotyphla, Talpidae), from the Wuyi Mountains, Jiangxi Province, eastern China

Abstract

Asian shrew moles, genus Uropsilus, are the most primitive members of family Talpidae. They are distributed mainly in southwestern China and adjacent Bhutan, Myanmar, and Vietnam. In June 2022, we collected five specimens of Uropsilus from Mount Huanggang, Jiangxi Province, eastern China, which is the highest peak of the Wuyi Mountains. We sequenced two mitochondrial (CYT B and 12S rRNA) and three nuclear (PLCB4, RAG1, and RAG2) genes to estimate the phylogenetic relationship of the five shrew moles. We also compared their morphology with recognized species within the genus. Our results show that these specimens collected from Mount Huanggang differ from all named species in Uropsilus. We formally describe the species here as Uropsilus huanggangensissp. nov. Morphologically, the new species is distinguishable from the other Uropsilus species by the combination of dark chocolate-brown pelage, long snout, enlarged first upper incisor, similarly sized lacrimal and infraorbital foramens, and the curved and sickle-like coronoid process. The genetic distances of the cytochrome b (CYT B) gene between U. huanggangensis and other recognized Uropsilus species ranged between 9.3% and 16.4%. The new species is geographically distant from other species in the genus and is the easternmost record of the Uropsilus. The divergence time of U. huanggangensis was estimated to be the late Pliocene (1.92 Ma, 95% CI = 0.88–2.99).