Resumo

PEREZ, Sergio G.; JOLON, Mario R.; MERIDA, Julio E.  e  ANDINO-MADRID, Alexandra J.. First record of the shrew Cryptotis lacandonensis (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae) for Guatemala. Therya [online]. 2019, vol.10, n.2, pp.187-193. ISSN 2007-3364.  https://doi.org/10.12933/therya-19-766.

A field expedition in 1995 around the community of Bethel, in the shore of the Usumacinta River, Guatemala, produced the collecting of one fluid specimen of shrew that remained unidentified as a voucher at the mammal collection at San Carlos University in Guatemala City. Our target was to identify this specimen and make the morphological comparison with a series of species of shrews of northern Central America. We extracted, cleaned the skull, and conducted a morphological comparison of the Bethel specimen with five species (20 specimens) of shrews from Guatemala and Honduras, besides the comparison with the description of C. lacandonensis Guevara, León and Woodman 2014, from Chiapas, México. We also took 13 skull measurements and conducted a morphometric analysis. Morphology of the Bethel specimen fit well with the description of C. lacandonensis, especially U4 upper teeth aligned with unicuspid toothrow, with a presence of a medium gap between U3-P4 that makes U4 visible in labial and lateral view. Principal component and linear discriminant analysis also showed that Bethel specimen grouped well with C. lacandonensis. Bethel shrew specimen can be identified as C. lacandonensis, the second known locality for the species and the first record for Guatemala. The community of Bethel, in Guatemala, is located only 18 km south of the type locality at Yaxchilán archeological site, Chiapas, México. This is a poorly known species, which merits more research.

Palavras-chave : Cryptotis nigrescens group; lacandona rainforest; Mayan Biosphere Reserve; morphometric analysis; Petén.