Erinaceus europaeus Linnaeus 1758

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Erinaceomorpha, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 212-219 : 213

Erinaceus europaeus Linnaeus 1758

Erinaceus europaeus Linnaeus 1758 , Syst. Nat., 10th ed., Vol. 1: 52 .

Type Locality: Sweden, S Gothland Isl.

Vernacular Names: West European Hedgehog.

Synonyms: Erinaceus caniceps H. Smith 1845 ; Erinaceus caninus Geoffroy 1803 ; Erinaceus consolei Barrett-Hamilton 1900 ; Erinaceus centralrossicus Ognev 1926 ; Erinaceus echinus Schulze 1897 ; Erinaceus hispanicus Barrett-Hamilton 1900 ; Erinaceus italicus Barrett-Hamilton 1900 ; Erinaceus meridionalis Altobello 1920 ; Erinaceus occidentalis Barrett-Hamilton 1900 ; Erinaceus suillus Geoffroy 1803 ; Erinaceus typicus Barrett-Hamilton 1900 .

Distribution: W Europe; Spain to Italy and Istrian Peninsula; north to Poland, Scandinavia and NW European Russia. Islands of Ireland, Britain, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Azores ( Mathias et al., 1998), and many smaller islands. European range mapped by Holz and Niethammer (1990:37) and Mitchell-Jones et al. (1999). Introduced to New Zealand, see King (1990).

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Formerly included amurensis , concolor , and roumanicus , see comments therein. Reviewed by Holz and Niethammer (1990). Subspecific boundaries are unresolved ( Corbet, 1988:137) but studies of allozyme variation ( Filippucci and Simson, 1996), and of mitochondrial DNA variation ( Kretteck et al., 1995, Santucci et al., 1998) indicate a strong east-west geographical partitioning of the European populations, with Spain, France and Great Britain on one side, and Italy, Corsica, Germany and Sweden on the other side. A single sample from Sicily clustered with the western group and obscured the otherwise clear pattern ( Santucci et al., 1998). Filippucci and Simson (1996) suggested that E. hispanicus could represent a distinct species, an assumption principally supported by the genetic study of Santucci et al. (1998). However, other than in the case of E. concolor and E. roumanicus , the geographic sampling of the E. europaeus group is still insufficient, the morphological variation has not been assessed yet, and taxonomic problems remain to be solved. Five available names with type localities in Spain, France and the UK must be evaluated before the correct species name can be fixed.