Three New Species of Small-eared Shrews, Genus Cryptotis, from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Soricidae)

Abstract

The Cryptotis goldmani group of small-eared shrews (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae: Cryptotis Pomel, 1848) is a clade of semifossorially adapted species discontinuously distributed in moist highlands from central Mexico to western Panama. Inspection of a recent collection of small mammals resulting from field work in Guatemala provided the impetus for a re-evaluation of one member of that group, Goodwin's small-eared shrew, Cryptotis goodwini Jackson, 1933. On the basis of the results of that study, three new species of small-eared shrews are described from (1) disturbed cloud forest on Cerro Cucurucho, Sacatepéquez Department, Guatemala; (2) highlands east of Mataquescuintla, Jalapa Department, Guatemala; and (3) Cerro Montecristo, a massif at the mutual borders of northern El Salvador, eastern Guatemala, and western Honduras. The new species are most similar morphologically to the Guatemalan endemic species C. goodwini and C. mam Woodman, 2010, from which they are distinguished by a variety of external and cranial characters. Recognition of the three new species more narrowly defines the distribution of C. goodwini (sensu stricto), which is now known only from portions of the western Sierra Madre of Guatemala.