The Masked Shrew, Sorex cinereus 



(Insectivora: Soricidae), and Red-backed Vole, 



Clethrionomys gapperi (Rodentia: Muridae), in the 



Blue Ridge Province of South Carolina 



Joshua Laerm 



Museum of Natural History and Institute of Ecology 



University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 



Eric Brown, Michael A. Menzel 

 Daniel B. Warnell School of Forest Resources 

 University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 



Amanda Wotjalik 



Museum of Natural History 



University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 



William Mark Ford 

 Daniel B. Warnell School of Forest Resources 

 University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 



AND 



Mary Strayer 



Nongame and Heritage Trust Program, 



South Carolina Wildlife and Marine Resources Department 



P.O. Box 1806, Clemson, South Carolina 29633 



ABSTRACT — The first records of Sorex cinereus Kerr are documented 

 from South Carolina. Pitfall surveys throughout the Blue Ridge 

 Province resulted in captures from two localities in markedly 

 mesic, relict, boreal habitats. Additional records of Clethironomys 

 gapperi (Vigors) were documented including the most southeastern 

 record. Both S. cinereus and C. gapperi are rare in South 

 Carolina, largely because of limited areas of appropriate habitats. 



The masked shrew, Sorex cinereus Kerr, has the largest range 

 and exhibits the greatest geographic variation of any North American 

 Sorex (Hall 1981, Junge and Hoffmann 1981, van Zyll de Jong and 

 Kirkland 1989). It ranges throughout the transcontinental coniferous 

 forests from the Canadian Arctic south to the extreme northern por- 

 tions of the United States with significant extensions south into the 



Brimleyana 22:15-21, June 1995 15 



