Louisiana researchers ID 14 new shrew species on Sulawesi

Louisiana researchers have identified 14 new species of shrews on an Indonesian island where seven in that genus were previously known

NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana researchers have identified 14 new species of shrews on an Indonesian island where seven in that genus were previously known.

There were so many and some look so similar that after a while Louisiana State University biologist Jake Esselstyn and his colleagues began hunting for Latin words meaning “ordinary.”

“Otherwise I don’t know what we would have named them,” said Esselstyn, who also named the seventh known species of the pointy-nosed insect-eating mammals on the island of Sulawesi.

That's why shrews whose species names mean such things as “hairy-tailed" and ”long" have been joined by “Crocidura mediocris,” “C. normalis,” “C. ordinaria,” and “C. solita” — the last of those meaning “usual.”