Survey and capture of albino-like house musk shrews (Suncus murinus) in Okinawa, Japan, and a preliminary report regarding inheritance of the albino-like mutation

The house musk shrew (Suncus murinus) is one of 15 species in the genus Suncus (Abe 1985). This species is widely distributed from the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent to Southeast Asia, from tropical to subtropical regions, and its northernmost recorded habitat is in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan (Corbet and Hill 1992). In Japan, the house musk shrew has been an established laboratory animal since 1973, and several laboratory strains currently exist (e.g., KAT, NAG, RYU, TESS; Oda 1991). This is the only widely used laboratory animal belonging to the Insectivora; suncus is utilized for a variety of purposes, including emesis studies (Ueno et al. 1987; Uchino et al. 2006). The house musk shrew exhibits extreme morphological variations. For example, its body weight varies three-to fourfold among wild populations: male shrews in Bangladesh weigh more than 150 g, while males in Guam are less than 50 g (Tomita et al. 1984; Ishikawa et al. 1989). Variations also exist in the dentition (Hanamura et al. 1979; Jogahara et al. 2007), chromosome number (Minesawa 1985), and coat color (Iseki et al. 1984; Ishikawa et al. 1986, 1987, 1989).