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Cryptotis Meridensis, Neal Woodman, Amelia Dıaz De Pascual

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

CONTEXT AND CONTENT.

Order Soricomorpha, family Soricidae, subfamily Soricinae, tribe Blarinini, genus Cryptotis (Hutterer 1993; Repenning 1967). The species is part of the Cryptotis thomasi group (Choate 1970; Woodman 2002). Cryptotis meridensis is monotypic (Woodman 2002).

DIAGNOSIS.

Cryptotis meridensis (Fig. 1) is one of the largest members of the genus; length of head and body is typically >83 mm. C. meridensis and the Mexican endemic, C. phillipsii, are the only species of small-eared shrews in which U4 (dental terminology follows that of Choate [1970] and Choate and Fleharty [1974]) frequently is absent. In C. meridensis, U4 is absent …

Great Plains Ecosystems: Past, Present, And Future, Fred B. Samson, Fritz L. Knopf, Wayne Ostlie

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Little questions exists that the main bodies of North American prairie (i.e., the tall-grass, mixed, and shortgrass) are among the most endangered resources on the continent. The purpose of this paper is to provide a past and present biological base- line by which to understand North American prairies and to provide a platform for future conservation. Events both immediate to the end of the Pleistocene and historic suggest that the present grassland conditions are different from those within which most of the grassland organisms evolved. Our analysis suggests that few grassland landscapes remain adequate in area and distribution to sustain …