Mammals of the Ardis Local Fauna 



Little is known about its diet, which probably consisted of coarse 

 vegetation (based on large, flat, high-crowned teeth of indeterminate 

 growth). Regarding its habitat, Holmesina is suspected to be intolerant 

 of cold climates (Kurten and Anderson 1980). 



Holmesina was first reported from South Carolina by Roth and 

 Laerm (1980) at Edisto Island. 



Order Insectivora 



Family Soricidae 



Blarina brevicauda - Northern Short-tailed Shrew 



Material: 2 right maxillae with the Ml and M2 (.11, .12); 4 right 

 dentaries with m2 and m3 (USNM); cl, pi, p2, ml, m2 (.13); cl, ml 

 (.14); cl, pi, p2, ml (.15), respectively; 2 left maxillae with Ml, M2, 

 M3 (.16) and Ml (.17) respectively; 1 left dentary with ml-m3 (.18); 

 1 isolated cl (.19). 



Remarks: Identification was made on the basis of characters listed 

 by Guilday (1962) and by direct comparisons to fossil and recent specimens. 

 Ardis specimens are indistinguishable from modern comparative materials 

 of B. brevicauda and are generally larger in size than samples of B. 

 carolinensis (Graham and Semken 1976). Apparently B. brevicauda 

 size reflects a positive Bergmann's response, suggesting that the fossils 

 from the Ardis site are a more northerly stock and not the smaller 

 southern species B. carolinensis (McNab 1971, Guilday et al. 1977, 

 Klippel and Parmalee 1982, Jones et al. 1984). 



The northern short-tailed shrew occurs in a variety of terrestrial 

 habitats from forests, fields and meadows, to salt marshes. Today this 

 species occurs, in South Carolina, only in the extreme northwestern 

 portion of the State, nearly 300 km from the fossil locality. An isolated 

 population on the coast of North Carolina is about the same distance 

 from the site (Webster et al. 1985). B. carolinensis does occur in the 

 area of the Ardis site today. 



This is the first fossil record of B. brevicauda reported from 

 South Carolina. 



Sorex sp. cf. S. longirostris - Southeastern Shrew 

 Material: 1 left dentary with complete dentition (.10). 



Remarks: Guilday (1962) and Guilday et al. (1969, 1977) separated 

 Sorex cinereus from S. longirostris based on a slightly larger mean 

 size of S. cinereus, because tooth morphology is nearly identical. The 



