Distribution of Some Nebraskan Mammals

BY
J. KNOX JONES, JR.


University of Kansas
Lawrence
1954

University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History

Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, A. Byron Leonard, Robert W. Wilson


Volume 7, No. 6, pp. 479-487
Published April 21, 1954


University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas


PRINTED BY
FERD VOILAND, JR., STATE PRINTER
TOPEKA, KANSAS
1954

25-2530

Distribution of Some Nebraskan Mammals

by

J. Knox Jones, Jr.

Because military service will interrupt my study of Nebraskan mammals, I am here placing on record certain information on the geographic distribution of several species—information that is thought pertinent to current studies of some of my associates. Most of this information is provided by specimens recently collected by me and other representatives of the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, although specimens from other collections provide some of the records herein reported. The other collections are the Biological Surveys Collection of the United States National Museum (USBS), the Hastings Museum (HM), the Nebraska Game, Forestation and Parks Commission (NGFPC), the University of California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology (MZ) and the University of Nebraska State Museum (NSM). Grateful acknowledgment hereby is made to persons in charge of these several collections for lending the materials concerned. Specimens mentioned in the following accounts are in the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, except as otherwise stated. All measurements are in millimeters. Color terms are those of Ridgway (1912). A part of the funds for field work was made available by the National Science Foundation and the Kansas University Endowment Association.

Sorex cinereus haydeni. (Baird). Cinereous Shrew.—Two male shrews were trapped on April 7, 1952, among rocks along an old railroad fill, 4 mi. N, 1/2 mi. E of Octavia, Butler County, thus extending the known geographic range of S. c. haydeni approximately 60 miles southward from a line connecting Perch, Rock County, Nebraska, with Wall Lake, Sac County, Iowa (see Jackson, 1928:52-53), and providing the first record of occurrence in the Platte River Valley. Two additional specimens, taken on July 17, 1952, are from 2-1/2 mi. N of Ord, Valley County, along the Loup River, a tributary of the Platte from the north.

Blarina brevicauda carolinensis (Bachman). Short-tailed Shrew.—J. S. Findley and I, in a forthcoming paper, review the distribution of Blarina brevicauda in the Great Plains region, recording B. b. carolinensis from the extreme southeastern and southwestern counties of Nebraska. A series of five shrews of this species recently obtained from three miles south and two miles east of Nebraska City in Otoe County, average significantly smaller in both the cranial and the external measurements than typical B. b. brevicauda and fall well within the range of carolinensis. Average and extreme external measurements of the four adults from Otoe County, three males and one female, are as follows: Total length, 110 (109-112); length of tail-vertebrae, 24.2 (22-26); length of hind foot, 13.8 (13-14). Another specimen from 3 mi. S, 1-1/2 mi. E of Peru, Nemaha County, also is referable to carolinensis. These recent records