Asian house shrew
species of shrew
The Asian house shrew (Suncus murinus) is a shrew species native to South and Southeast Asia that has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2008 because of its large population and wide distribution. It has been introduced in several West Asian and East African countries. It is considered an invasive species and has been implicated in the demise of several island lizard species.
It is also called house shrew, grey musk shrew, Asian musk shrew or Indian musk shrew.
Taxonomy
Sorex murinus was the scientific name proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1766 for a house shrew from Java.
In the late 18th to early 20th centuries, several house shrew zoological specimens were described as distinct species that are considered synonyms today:
Sorex myosurus by Peter Simon Pallas in 1781;
Sorex viridescens by Edward Blyth in 1859 was a house shrew from the Malabar coast, India;
Description
The house shrew has a uniform, short, dense fur of mid-grey to brownish-grey color. The tail is thick at the base and a bit narrower at the tip, and is covered with a few long, bristle-like hairs that are thinly scattered. They have short legs with five clawed toes. They have small external ears and an elongated snout. They also emit a strong odor of musk, derived from musk glands that are sometimes visible on each side of the body.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Asian house shrew” is species of shrew. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Asian, house and shrew, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “species of shrew” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1062541. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008, 1766, 1781 and 1859.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Asian house shrew” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.