COMPARISONS: Crocidura parva is much smaller than all known Sulawesi shrews except other members of the Small-Bodied Group. Externally, C. parva is rather uniform in color, as are C. levicula, C. baletei, and C. tenebrosa, but other species have paler feet than bodies, including C. lea and to a lesser extent, C. mediocris. The overall color of C. parva is slightly darker than C. mediocris, and considerably darker than C. lea. The tail has more bristles than in C. mediocris, but fewer than C. levicula (fig. 29). The pelage is shorter than in other species, except that C. mediocris is similar. The skull of the tiny C. parva is slightly smaller overall than seen in any of the other very small taxa (table 8) and relative rostral length (RL / CIL) is less than in C. mediocris, C. baletei, and C. tenebrosa (fig. 10). Most distinctively, the braincases of the other species are more dorsoventrally inflated, particularly in the case of C. lea. The flat braincase of C. parva is narrower than in all other Small-Bodied species, but the range of values overlaps with those from C. lea, C. levicula, and C. mediocris (fig. 26). Bivariate plots of cranial length versus width and the first two axes from a PCA of 12 cranial dimensions show C. parva to occupy largely distinct morphometric space, but to overlap some with C. lea, C. levicula, and C. mediocris (fig. 26). Finally, in C. parva, on the upper molariform teeth, the protocone is relatively low, compared with those of the other Small-Bodied shrews (figs. 28, 31).
Sumber: Fourteen New, Endemic Species Of Shrew (Genus Crocidura) From Sulawesi Reveal A Spectacular Island Radiation