Sorex G. Fischer 1814

Genus Sorex G. Fischer, 1814

Of the eight species traditionally listed as inhabiting Korea, we regarded S. araneus and S. unguiculatus as either misidentification or error of records. Therefore, we identified six species of Sorex in Korea.

Sorex araneus has a wide distribution in the Palearctic, occurring from Britain through central, northern and eastern Europe and Asia as far east as Lake Baikal and as far north as the Arctic Coast. Since Sorex isodon was regarded as Sorex araneus isodon (Hoffmann & Lunde 2008), S. araneus has been listed as a Korean mammal (Tate 1947; Won & Smith 1999). However, the distribution of S. araneus does not extend into eastern Asia (Hutterer 2005b). Thus, we delisted S. araneus from the mammals of Korea.

Sorex unguiculatus share morphological similarities with S. isodon such as large body size, dark-brown ventral color, and broad forefeet. The collection of specimens of S. unguiculatus in North Korea brings into question the problem of possible misidentification (Han et al. 2000). The identification of these specimens is apparently problematic (Han et al. 2000) and should be examined to validate their identity. For the moment, we chose to delist S. unguiculatus from Korean mammals.