Endangered
Ryukyu shrew
Crocidura orii
Ryukyu shrew is a mammal in the family Soricidae (order Soricomorpha) — Crocidura orii, recorded as Endangered.
Range and habitat
The hairs on Orii's shrew may range from a light grey to brown color. Orii's shrew is endemic to the Amami Islands in Japan. Orii's shrew only inhabits the natural broadleaf forests of the island, even so, their morphology leads scientists to believe semi-fossorial habitats would be inhabitable.
This species is endemic to the Amami Islands of Japan and is threatened by habitat loss and invasive species. Mongooses have migrated to Amami Island and are killing shrews from an already small population The habitat is being degraded and fragmented due to roads being built through the forest.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
The species was classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2015 after the population began to decline. This decline is due to the introduction of mongooses as predators and the removal of natural forest space. Only 15-30% of the natural forests remain intact on Amami Island.
Ryukyu shrew is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Ryukyu shrew, Wikidata item Q305903. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
