Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
January 9, 1822
Primary Source Reference:
Poulson's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 9 Jan 1822
Additional Source Text:
On a list of specimens "mostly obtained from high up the Missouri by Titian Peale" during the Long Expedition.
Notes:
Although the entry in this newspaper announcement is "A New Shrew," in fact two new species of soricid were discovered by Titian Ramsay Peale on the Long Expedition and classified by Thomas Say as Sorex brevicaudus (Northern short-tailed shrew, now Blarina brevicauda, uppermost in the watercolor by Peale) and Sorex parvus (Least shrew, now Cryptotis parvus, lower right in the watercolor). Edwin James, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and '20: By Order of the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, Sec'y of War: Under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long, vol. 1 [Philadelphia, 1823], pp. 163n-164n; Richard Harlan, Fauna Americana, pp. 28-32; Neal Woodman, "The Stephen H. Long Expedition (1819–1820), Titian R. Peale's Field Illustrations, and The Lost Holotypes of The North American Shrews Sorex Brevicaudus Say and Sorex Parvus Say (Mammalia: Soricidae) from The Philadelphia Museum," Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 122, 1 (2009): 117-129 / https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232691022_The_Stephen_H_Long_E…
Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885) was engaged as assistant naturalist on the Long Expedition (May 1819-Nov 1820). His services were "required in collecting specimens suitable to be preserved, in drafting and delineating them, in preserving the skins, &c. of animals, and in sketching the statifications of rocks, earths &c. as presented on the declivities of precipices." (Edwin James, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and '20: By Order of the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, Sec'y of War: Under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long, vol. 1 [Philadelphia, 1823], p. 3)
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Peale's Common Name:
Shrew
Current Common Name:
Northern short-tailed shrew; Least shrew
Current Scientific Name
Blarina brevicauda; Cryptotis parvus
