A new species of <i>Cryptotis</i> (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae) and introduction to the systematics of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian <i>Cryptotis</i> species

Abstract The genus Cryptotis comprises 53 species, 18 of them known from South America, most belonging to the Cryptotis “thomasi” group. Recent discoveries suggest that its diversity remains unknown. In South America, one of the less studied regions for Cryptotis is southern Ecuador and northern Peru. A recent collection of two undetermined shrews from Zamora Chinchipe Province, southern Ecuador, which presented distinct morphology from the known Ecuadorian species for Ecuador, determined here as Cryptotis sp. “Ecuador”, led us to perform a review of Cryptotis from Ecuador and Peru, including a preliminary taxonomic revision of the “thomasi” group. An integrative approach using morphological analyses and molecular phylogenies based on two mitochondrial genes (CYTB and COI) confirmed that the “thomasi” group is monophyletic and that the specimens of Cryptotis sp. “Ecuador” are distinct from its congeners, representing a new species, with a genetic distance of 8 % from its closest congeners. Furthermore, we found that the currently recognized Peruvian species Cryptotis evaristoi , Cryptotis peruviensis , and C. “ montivagus ” ( sensu Zeballos, H., Pino, K., Medina, C.E., Pari, A., Chávez, D., Tinoco, N., and Ceballos, G. (2018). A new species of small-eared shrew of the genus Cryptotis (Mammalia, Eulipotyphla, Soricidae) from the northernmost Peruvian Andes. Zootaxa 4377: 51–73) are reciprocally monophyletic, but showing low genetic distances (0.77–1.83 %) and high morphological similarity. This finding suggests the possibility they might represent variations of C. peruviensis (oldest available name) rather than distinct species.