The Sanetti shrew or Bekele's shrew (''Crocidura afeworkbekelei'') is a species of mammal in the family Soricidae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...

Etymology

Its

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

honors Ethiopian mammalogist Afework Bekele.

Distribution and habitat

This species is thought to be endemic to the

Bale Mountains The Bale Mountains (also known as the Urgoma Mountains) are mountain ranges in the Oromia Region of southeast Ethiopia, south of the Awash River, part of the Ethiopian Highlands. They include Tullu Demtu, the second-highest mountain in Ethiopia ...

of the Sanetti Plateau in southwestern Ethiopia. It inhabits the

Afromontane The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions ...

zone with low and scattered vegetation, at about 4,000 meters above sea level.

Description

It is a small shrew, with the head-body length being between , the length of the tail being between , the length of the feet between , and the length of the ears between . The dorsal

pelage Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket t ...

is greyish-brown with the base of the hairs being gray, while the ventral pelage is gray with light yellowish tips. The back of the legs is light gray. The feet are slightly elongated. The tail, between 50.6 and 61.5% of the head-body length, is brown above, brownish-gray below and interspersed with long bristles.

Conservation status

No threats have presently been documented for this species, and it is classified as

Data Deficient A data deficient (DD) species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as offering insufficient information for a proper assessment of conservation status to be made. This does not necessarily ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q27902011 Crocidura Mammals of Ethiopia Endemic fauna of Ethiopia Mammals described in 2016