Taxonomic status and origin of the shrews (soricidae) from the canary islands inferred from a mtdna comparison with the european crocidura species

[EN] European island shrews are either relicts of the endemic Pleistocene fauna, e.g., Crocidura zimmermanni, or were introduced from continental source populations. In order to clarify the taxonomic status and the origin of the two shrew species from the Canary Islands, a 981 bp fragment of cytochrome b gene was investigated in all European Crocidura species and compared with the Canary shrew (Crocidura canariensis) and the Osorio shrew (Crocidura osorio). The first shares its karyotype with the Sicilian shrew Crocidura sicula (2N = 36), the second with the Greater white-toothed shrew Crocidura russula (2N = 42), suggesting possible sister species relationships.

Status of the extinct giant lacertid lizard Gallotia simonyi simonyi (Reptilia: Lacertidae) assessed using mtDNA sequences from museum specimens

[EN] Gallotia simonyi (Steindachner, 1889) is a member of an endemic Canary Island genus and is among the largest of the approximately 250 recent species of lacertid lizards. Although Steindachner gave the locality of the types as the Roques de Salmor, off El Hierro island, previous workers (Urusaustegui, 1983; Manrique & Saavedra, 1873; Viera & Clavijo, 1983) and subsequent ones (Machado, 1985) regard the more western of the two rocks in the group, the Roque Chico de Salmor, as the actual source of material. The Roque Chico is 37 m high with a surface area of less than 10,000 m2 and lies 830 m from the northern coast of El Hierro (Machado, 1985).