Erinaceus, Linnaeus, 1758

Demirtaş, Sadık, Gündüz, İslam & Herman, Jeremy S., 2022, Discrimination of the sister hedgehog species Erinaceus concolor and E. roumanicus (Erinaceomorpha: Mammalia): a geometric morphometric approach, Turkish Journal of Zoology 46 (2), pp. 228-235 : 228

Keywords: Erinaceus , dorsal cranium, mandible, shape variation, geometric morphometric, Turkey

1. Introduction

Four species of the genus Erinaceus ( E. amurensis , E. europaeus , E. concolor , and E. roumanicus ) are distributed across the Palaearctic region. Of these species, E. concolor Martin, 1838 (the southern white-breasted hedgehog) and E. roumanicus Barrett-Hamilton, 1900 (the northern white-breasted hedgehog) are found in different geographical regions of Turkey. The range of E. concolor covers the Asian part of Turkey ( Anatolia), northwestern Iran and the Levant. E. roumanicus is mainly confined to the European part of Turkey (Thrace) and is also found in much of Central and Eastern Europe ( Filippucci and Simson, 1996; Seddon et al., 2001; Hutterer, 2005). Morphological differentiation between E. concolor and E. roumanicus may be considered insignificant when compared with their genetic divergence, supporting a sister relationship between these two parapatric species. ( Krystufek, 2002; Bolfikova and Hulva, 2012; Bannikova et al., 2014). Although E. concolor and E. roumanicus share the same diploid chromosome numbers (2n = 48), the distribution of large heterochromatic blocks in autosomes (e.g., the autosome no. 15) was found to be different in the two species, suggesting that taxa are distinguished on some species-specific cytogenetic features ( Arslan et al., 2008).

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Conventional morphologic studies previously indicated that a single species, E. concolor , was present in Turkey ( Doğramacı and Gündüz, 1993; Kryštufek, 2002). Doğramacı and Gündüz (1993) showed that the Thracian and Anatolian hedgehogs were highly similar morphologically except for a few characters such as occipital length and condylobasal length in the skull. Subsequently, the concolor and roumanicus morphotypes were defined, based on the presence-absence or length of the nasomaxillary suture ( Kryštufek, 2002). Both concolor and roumanicus morphotypes were present in much of western Anatolia and the Levant, however morphometric analyses in the same paper indicated that roumanicus specimens were confined to northwestern Anatolia (İzmit and Sakarya), leading Kryštufek (2002) to suggest that the nasomaxillary structure was not a reliable taxonomic character.

Using a landmark-based geometric morphometrics approach, the present study aims to investigate size and shape variations on the dorsal surface of the cranium and the mandible of what are nowadays considered distinct species, E. concolor and E. roumanicus . Specimens were obtained throughout Turkey, including northwestern Anatolia, where the two species come into contact.