Food and Ectoparasites of the Southern Short-tailed 



Shrew, Blarina carolinensis (Mammalia: Soricidae), 



from South Carolina 



John O. Whitaker, Jr. 



Department of Life Sciences, Indiana State University, 

 Terra Haute, Indiana 47809 



Gregory D. Hartman 1 



Museum of Southwestern Biology, Department of Biology, 



University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131 and 



Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, 



Drawer E, Aiken, South Carolina 29802 2 



AND 



Randy Hein 



Department of Life Sciences, Indiana State University, 

 Terra Haute, Indiana 47809 



ABSTRACT — Food habitats and ectoparasites were examined in a 

 sample of 50 individuals of Blarina carolinensis collected in a 

 hardwood forest on the Coastal Plain of western South Carolina. 

 Both in terms of volume and frequency of occurrence, predominant 

 foods were slugs and snails (Mollusca), the hypogeous fungus 

 Endogone, earthworms (Annelida), and beetle (Coleoptera) adults 

 and larvae. Ectoparasites observed on B. carolinensis included 

 one species of flea (Doratopsylla blarina), one species of beetle 

 (Leptinus americanus), and 25 species of mites, the most frequent 

 being Orycteroxenus soricis, Asiochirus blarina, Echinonyssus blarinae, 

 Haemogamasus liponyssoides, and several species of Pygmephorus. 



A good deal of information exists on the foods and ectoparasites 

 of the northern short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda (Say 1823); 

 however, this is not the case for the southern short-tailed shrew, 

 B. carolinensis (Bachman 1837). We are not aware of any detailed 

 information on the foods eaten by B. carolinensis, and know of only 

 five species of ectoparasites that have been reported: the laelapids 

 Androlaelaps fahrenholzi and Haemogamasus harperi by Hayes and 

 Guyton (1958), Eulaelaps stabularis by Hayes and Guyton (1958) and 

 Jameson (1947), and Myonyssus jamesoni by Ewing and Baker (1947), 



1 Present address: Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, McNeese 

 State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana 70609. 



2 Address for reprint requests. 



Brimleyana 21:97-105, December 1994 97 



