Late Quaternary shrews (Mammalia: Soricomorpha) from Priamurye according to data from Koridornaya Cave

Abstract During excavations in Koridornaya Cave (Pompeevskiy Ridge, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia) in 2017–2018, for the first time in Priamurye (Outer Manchuria), numerous bone remains of Late Quaternary mammals were recovered. The purpose of this work was to determine the species list of shrews of that time and to estimate their abundance. In the deposits of Koridornaya Cave, 890 cranial remains of shrews (Soricidae) were found belonging to 11 species from four genera: Sorex, Neomys, Beremendia, and Crocidura. The formation time of the deposits corresponds to the Karginsky interstadial (MIS 3), and the upper part of the deposits contains Holocene (MIS 1) material. Pleistocene communities of shrews of the Pompeevskiy Ridge included modern inhabitants of this territory (S. caecutiens, S. isodon, S. unguiculatus, S. daphaenodon, S. roboratus, S. minutissimus, N. fodiens, and C. lasiura) and S. tundrensis; C. ex gr. suaveolens appeared in the Holocene. Sorex gracillimus, which currently lives here, either was absent in Late Pleistocene communities or was extremely rare. The dominant species in the communities of that time was S. caecutiens, just as in the Southern Sikhote-Alin (Late Pleistocene to Holocene) and in most of modern communities of shrews in the south of the Russian Far East.