AT A GLANCE
- Common Name: Checkered Elephant Shrew
- Scientific Name: Rhynchocyon cirnei
- Category: Mammals
- Subcategory: Elephant Shrews
- Range: Central and southeastern Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, and northern Mozambique
- Habitat Type: Dense tropical moist lowland forests, montane rainforests, gallery riverine forests, and thick deciduous woodland with deep leaf litter
- IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern
- Lifespan: 3 to 5 years
- Diet: Insectivorous (earthworms, termites, ants, centipedes, millipedes, beetles, and soil invertebrates probed from leaf litter)
- Average Size/Weight: Head-and-body length 25 to 31 cm; tail length 22 to 26 cm; weight 450 to 550 g
- Key Defining Feature: Large, athletic sengi with an elongated flexible proboscis snout, slender kangaroo-like jumping legs, and a striking checkered pattern of alternating dark chestnut and pale spots along its back
Overview
The Checkered Elephant Shrew (Rhynchocyon cirnei), or Checkered Sengi, is a distinctive, ground-dwelling mammal native to the moist forest floors of Central and East Africa. Despite its historical common name, it is not a true shrew at all, but rather a member of the ancient African superorder Afrotheria—making it more closely related evolutionary to elephants, sea cows, and aardvarks than to rodents. Equipped with a long, flexible, highly sensitive trunk-like snout and elongated hind legs, it sprints like a miniature antelope along well-maintained leaf-litter paths.
Biology and Physical Characteristics
Rhynchocyon cirnei is one of the largest members of the elephant shrew family Macroscelididae. It possesses an arched back and remarkably long, slender limbs, with the hind legs considerably longer than the forelimbs, adapted for high-speed cursorial sprinting. Its most conspicuous trait is its elongated, tapered, flexible proboscis, which it wiggles continuously to detect scent cues and probe subterranean worm burrows. Its glossy coat features a spectacular dorsal pattern: a series of alternating dark chestnut-brown and creamy-white rectangular blocks arranged in longitudinal rows down the rump, resembling an intricate chessboard, bordered by warm golden-rufous shoulders and flanks.
Behavior and Ecology
Checkered Sengis are strictly diurnal and form strictly monogamous breeding pairs that defend large, overlapping territories of several hectares, though partners rarely interact outside of territory defense. They spend their days tirelessly sweeping the forest floor, using their flexible snouts and foreclaws to flip over fallen leaves and excavate worms, crickets, and spiders. Each pair maintains an intricate network of cleared runway trails through the leaf litter; if startled by an eagle or serval, the sengi rockets along these pre-cleared tracks at speeds exceeding 25 kilometers per hour, drumming its long scaly tail loudly against the dry leaves to signal predator detection.
Conservation and Human Impact
The Checkered Elephant Shrew is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List due to its extensive distribution across Central and Southeastern Africa. However, localized subspecies, particularly in isolated montane forest patches in Malawi and Tanzania, face localized threats from rapid deforestation, charcoal burning, and subsistence hunting with dogs and snare lines.
Interesting Factoid
The Checkered Elephant Shrew spends hours meticulously sweeping forest trails clear of twigs and debris so that if a predator attacks, it can sprint along its private woodland racetracks at over 15 miles per hour.