Habitat: Not a species of true desert. Generally found around human settlements and agricultural activity. Also gardens, buildings, and more densely vegetated areas of coastal desert, including salt marshes.
Habits: Nocturnal though occasionally active by day. Spends day in a simple burrow up to lm long, which it excavates itself. Diet omnivorous, probably largely insects, but will also take fruit and small vertebrates. Possibly an important pest control. Hearing and scent acute. Predators include the Eagle Owl Bubo bubo and probably also the Jackal Cams aureus, Swamp Cat Felis chaus, etc. Unlike other hedgehogs, does not roll into a ball when threatened. Gestation 36–37 days. Female enlarges end of tunnel to make a nest chamber. Elsewhere, breeding season from May to October with peak in summer. Litter size 1–5.
Associated Species: The Long-eared Hedgehog has been found in the burrows of the Fat Sand Rat Psammomys obesus.
Notes: Kingdon (1997) also assigns the Ethiopian Hedgehog to the genus Hemiechinus but note the differences outlined below in the description of that species.
Similar species: Readily told from the Ethiopian Hedgehog by small size, the very prominent ears, and lack of ‘parting’ in frontal spines. In hand, also differentiated by uniform pale underside. Habitat is also important—a hedgehog in true desert is not likely to be this species. Porcupines much larger.
ETHIOPIAN HEDGEHOG Paraechinus aethiopicus (Ehrenberg, 1833)
Pl. 1
Ethiopian Hedgehog (Paraechinus aethiopicus)
Subspecies occurring in Egypt: P. a. aethiopicus, P. a. deserti, and P. a. dorsalis.
Arabic: Qunfid habashi
Identification: Length 184–258mm; Tail 13–30mm: Weight to 500g. Typical hedgehog form with rather large ears, though not as proportionately large as in the Long-eared Hedgehog. Upper parts covered in spines up to 2.7cm long. Dorsal spines dark, tipped with pale brown. This gives a very dark impression of the back when seen from above, much darker than the Long-eared Hedgehog. Frontal spines divided by a bare patch or parting, extending some 3cm back, but not a field feature. Spines along flank shorter and pale tipped. Underparts white with dark patches, rather variable. Head with rather pointed snout, but not as pointed as Long-eared Hedgehog. Face bicolored or all dark. Snout, chin, and throat dark brown. Forehead to just above eye and down sides pale. Ears large, broad-based, and extending beyond spines. Legs dark brown. Tail short.
Range and status: Egypt, including Sinai, south through Sudan to Somalia and west to Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania. Also Arabia north to Lebanon. In Egypt, P. a. aethiopicus is known only from the southern Eastern Desert including the Gebel Elba region. P. a. deserti recorded from the north coast from Sallum to the western margin of the Delta. P. a. dorsalis restricted to South Sinai.
Habitat: Deserts and semi-deserts, rocky wadis, and plains. Also gardens and oases.
Habits: In Egypt, virtually unrecorded and little known elsewhere. Nocturnal, probably most active at dawn and dusk. Spends day in burrow excavated by itself often under dense shrubbery. Home range probably small, within 200–300m of the burrow. Diet presumably similar to Long-eared Hedgehog, but reportedly more carnivorous including insects, grubs, small vertebrates, and probably fruit, roots, etc. Food may be stored underground. Predators unknown but possibly Eagle Owl. Gestation 30–40 days. Female gives birth to young in burrow or in vegetation. Litter size 1–4. One or more litter per year.
Notes: See comments on family taxonomy.
Similar species: For Long-eared Hedgehog, see previous species.
The Shrews—Family Soricidae
c. 246 species worldwide with 6 in Egypt.
The shrews include some of the world’s smallest mammals and indeed worldwide none exceeds 29cm in length or 40g in weight, and most are much smaller. Shrews are characterized not only by their small size but also by their generally mouse-like appearance, the elongated, pointed snout, small eyes and ears, and soft pelage often punctuated by longer bristle hairs, especially on the tail. The absence, presence, and degree to which these occur can be important in identification.
As a consequence of their small size, shrews have a very high surface area to volume ratio and must consume enormous amounts of food relative to their body size just to keep their metabolism going. Thus, shrews are almost constantly on the search for food, which consists largely of insects, arachnids, earthworms, and other invertebrates as well as occasional small vertebrates. In some species, killing is assisted by poisonous saliva. A further adaptation to the shrew’s frantic pace of life is refection noted in many, if not all shrew species. In refection, the rectum is extended and licked possibly so that the shrew can obtain nutrients from its food that might otherwise be lost in the feces. As is usual for animals with such a high metabolism, the life span of a shrew is generally very short, few survive beyond their first year. Their short lives are also due to the fact that shrews are born with one set of teeth. Once these wear out then the animal will die of starvation. They are thought to suffer less from predation than, for example, the smaller rodents, due to their distasteful flesh caused by noxious secretions from skin glands. That being said, their remains have been found in the pellets of Barn Owls Tyto alba.
The paucity of shrew species, mentioned under the general discussion of the insectivores, is paralleled by there being relatively few specimens of most species taken in Egypt. Indeed, only the Greater Musk Shrew Crocidura flavescens can be called at all widespread or common, and no other shrew has been recorded south of the Fayoum. This may reflect the genuine scarcity of shrews in Egypt, though the Nile Delta and Valley would appear to provide the moister habitat, rich in food and water, that shrews favor. It more likely reflects the fact that they are easily overlooked. Their small size (combined with preference for densely vegetated habitat) and the difficulty in trapping them makes them hard to locate or study. Savi’s Pygmy Shrew is too small to trap in conventional traps even if it were attracted by the same bait put out for the more vegetarian rodents. While it is probable that the isolated record of the House Shrew is of a single, introduced animal at the port of Suez, the Delta may support larger numbers of Savi’s Pygmy Shrew than the number of specimens collected would seem to indicate. The records of mummified specimens of Flower’s Shrew and the Dwarf Shrew Crocidura nana from Thebes in Upper Egypt may indicate that shrews did have a wider range in Egypt in pharaonic times when the climate was milder. Mummified shrews of as yet unidentified species have also been found at Saqqara.
It is probable, depending on their numbers and population density, that shrews consume a large number of agricultural insect pests.
Shrews are often referred to in Arabic by the generic terms for mouse or weasel: far, ‘irsa.
GREATER MUSK SHREW (GIANT MUSK SHREW, AFRICAN GIANT SHREW, GIANT SHREW) Crocidura flavescens (I. Geoffroy St-Hilaire, 1827)
Pl. 2
Subspecies occurring in Egypt: C. f. deltae.
Arabic: Zibab ‘imlaq
Identification: