West European Hedgehog – Erinaceus europaeus

Erinaceus europaeusLinnaeus, 1758

Accepted name, Mammal Species of the World 2005

Formerly included amurensis, concolor, and roumanicus, see comments therein. Reviewed by Holz and Niethammer (1990). Subspecific boundaries are unresolved (Corbet, 1988:137) but studies of allozyme variation (Filippucci and Simson, 1996), and of mitochondrial DNA variation (Kretteck et al., 1995, Santucci et al., 1998) indicate a strong east-west geographical partitioning of the European populations, with Spain, France and Great Britain on one side, and Italy, Corsica, Germany and Sweden on the other side. A single sample from Sicily clustered with the western group and obscured the otherwise clear pattern (Santucci et al., 1998). Filippucci and Simson (1996) suggested that E. hispanicus could represent a distinct species, an assumption principally supported by the genetic study of Santucci et al. (1998). However, other than in the case of E. concolor and E. roumanicus, the geographic sampling of the E. europaeus group is still insuffici... [truncated]

• Wilson, D and Reeder, D. (eds.) 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. 3rd ed. -- 2142 pp. Johns Hopkins University Press.