Sorex gracillimus Thomas, 1907 . Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1907:408.

TYPE LOCALITY: Russia, Sakhalin Isl, "Dariné, 25 miles [40 km] N.W. of Korsakoff, Saghalien" .

DISTRIBUTION: SE Siberia from S shore of the Sea of Okhotsk to N Korea and probably Manchuria; Sakhalin Isl; Hokkaido (Japan).

SYNONYMS: hyojironis.

COMMENTS: Subgenus Sorex . This species has long been included in minutus but its specific status is now widely accepted on the basis of penial (Dolgov and Lukanova, 1966) and cranial (Hutterer, 1979) morphology, karyotype (Orlov and Bulatova, 1983), and allozyme data (George, 1988). The inclusion of hyojironis follows Corbet (1978c) and is tentative.