Treeshrew Hybrids
Family Tupaiidae
EUGENE M. MCCARTHY, PHD GENETICS, ΦΒΚ
The following appears to be the only reported information relevant to hybridization in Family Tupaiidae. If you know of reported treeshrew hybrids other than those listed here, please contact the website.
Tupaia belangeri [Northern Treeshrew]
× Tupaia glis [Common Treeshrew] In Thailand on the Malay Peninsula at about 9°10′N (Surat Thani Province), these treeshrews have a PCZ, which is usually a sign of ongoing hybridization. But Hirai et al. 2002 did not detect hybrids among 23 specimens collected from that region.
Tupaia glis [Common Treeshrew]
See also: Tupaia belangeri.
× Tupaia tana [Large Treeshrew] NHR. CON: Sumatra. Schlegel and Müller (1843) mention a specimen they considered a probable natural hybrid, which they describe as “Hylogalea tana × Hylogalea ferruginea.” Hylogalea is a synonym of Tupaia and ferruginea is a synonym of glis.
Tupaia tana [Large Treeshrew] See: Tupaia glis.
Note: Naturalist Edward Lockwood (1878, p. 238) relates the following: “I was beating the jungles for pea-fowl, one evening in November, with very little success, when I heard my companion, who was inside the cover, shoot; and presently, on joining me, he declared that he had killed the greatest curiosity ever seen, a hybrid between a squirrel and a rat. This proved to be the Tree Shrew (Tupaia Elliotti) which had not been previously noticed in Bengal.” Lockwood's comments are quoted here not in order to persuade the reader that treeshrews are rat-squirrel hybrids, but rather to give an example of how people often attribute the origins of animals to hybrid crosses.
By the same author: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World, Oxford University Press (2006).
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