Soriculus
Soriculus is a genus of shrew native to the Himalayas, the adjacent Hengduan Mountains and surrounding areas. There was historically only one recognised species, Soriculus nigrescens, though from 2023 onwards additional living species of the genus were proposed.

Pei et al. · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- NeomyiniPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Soricidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Soricidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 4.16 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
9 occurrences of Soriculus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
9 occurrences- Pliocene23%
- Pleistocene77%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Soriculus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Soriculus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
304 taxa- Felis5 sites
- Hystrix5 sites
- Myotis5 sites
- Sciurotamias5 sites
- Hapalomys4 sites
- Leopoldamys4 sites
- Mimomys4 sites
- Niviventer4 sites
- Petenyia hungarica4 sites
- Rhinoceros sinensis4 sites
- Ursus4 sites
- Anourosorex3 sites
- Apodemus3 sites
- Apodemus sylvaticus3 sites
- Arctonyx collaris3 sites
- Belomys3 sites
- Beremendia fissidens3 sites
- Chiropodomys3 sites
- Chiroptera3 sites
- Crocidura3 sites
- Cuon3 sites
- Erinaceus3 sites
- Hipposideros3 sites
- Lynx3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Soriculus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
6 references- Pleistocene vertebrate faunas of Hungary3
- A preliminary study of the early Pleistocene deposits and the mammalian fauna from the Renzi Cave, Fancheng, Anhui, China2
- Huanglong Cave: A Late Pleistocene human fossil site in Hubei Province, China1
- A newly discovered Gigantopithecus fauna from Sanhe Cave, Chongzuo, Guangxi, South China1
- Geochronology of Ailuropoda–Stegodon fauna and Gigantopithecus in Guangxi Province, southern China1
- Insectivores, bats and rodents from the Early Pleistocene bone breccia of Podlesice near Kroczyce (Poland)1
Each of the 9 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Soriculus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Pei et al.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Soriculus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Soriculus”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itNeomyini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Blyth 1845