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Additional records of the Long-eared Hedgehog, Hemiechinus auritus (Gmelin, 1770) (Erinaceomorpha: Erinaceidae) from Fars Province, southern Iran

Iran is home to three genera and four species of hedgehogs in the family Erinaceidae. One of these, Paraechinus hypomelas, is known to occur in Fars Province. In the present study, we report two new distribution records of the Long-eared Hedgehog, Hemiechinus auritus from the southwestern region of Fars Province (Varavi Mountain in Mohr and Lamerd Townships in the southern Zagros Mountains), marking a range extension for this species in southern Iran.


Introduction
Knowledge concerning the mammal fauna of Iran continues to grow. It was thought to include 191 species belonging to 93 genera and 10 orders (Karami et al., 2008), but has subsequently grown to 194 species (Ziaie, 2008), and 199 species (Karami et al., 2016), respectively. The small order of Erinaceomorpha Gregory has 10 genera and 26 species distributed in Africa, Asia and Europe (Karami et al., 2016;Best, 2019).
In this study, we record the first occurrence of H. auritus in Fars Province, in southern Iran, and thus add another species of mammals to the fauna of Fars Province.

Material and Methods
The results of this study are based on several scaterred field observations in southern and western Iran. Figure 2 shows the localities of new records in Mohr and Lamerd Counties in the southwest of Fars Province, southern Iran.

Results
The earliest memory of the first author concerning hedgehogs harkens back to childhood, about 32 years ago, when his grandfather kept two hedgehogs in his wheat mill in southwestern Fars Province for controlling pests and snakes. One of the specimens was black and the other was wheat colored.
The local name of hedgehog in the south of Fars Province is "ZooZoo", while in Lorestan Province in western Iran it is "ZhooZhoo." In the Lorish dialect in the west and south of Iran, the name refers to having an unkempt or disheveled appearance.
Subsequently, the first author as a zoologist has had a more scientific focus on the mammals of Fars Province, noting where hedgehog specimens were found at the night in desert areas or were killed on the roads by motor vehicles (Fig. 3). Most of the observed specimens were blackish (Fig. 4) but in rare cases they were yellowish. One H. auritus individual (Fig. 3)     The specimen of Long-eared Hedgehog was released in the same habitat after being photographed. In these habitats of Fars Province, Hemiechinus auritus is sympatric with Paraechinus hypomelas (Fig. 2B).
Varavi Mountain in the southern part of the Zagros Mountains is a massif 124 km long and 4-8 km wide about 45 km from the Persian Gulf (Fig. 2). It extends from the western border of the Mohr Township to the eastern border of Lamerd Township, both in the southwest of Fars Province. The vegetation of Varavi Mountain consists of different species of thorny bushes (Astragalus), seasonal herbaceous cover, scattered wild Ziziphus trees, and sparse wild pistachio Pistacia atlantica Desfontaines (common name in Persian is Baneh), wild almond trees Amygdalus scoparia Spach, and wild fig Ficus sp. (Gholamifard et al., 2019).

Discussion
The type locality of H. auritus is the "Astrakan Oblast; Astrakhan" in Russia (Lay, 1967), and the species is distributed in Palaearctic Asia and northern Africa (Ziaie, 2008;Best, 2019). Two species of long-eared hedgehogs from Iran were distinguished by Lay (1967) (Lay, 1967), while H. a. megalotis has been recorded from Zabol, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, in southeastern Iran (Morshed and Patton, 2002).
Based on the small genetic distance of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (0.3% Kimura 2parameter distance) between populations of H. auritus and H. megalotis from Kerman and Sistan and Baluchestan Provinces, respectively, H. a. megalotis is now considered as a subspecies of H. auritus (Morshed and Patton, 2002).
According to Lay (1967), Hemiechinus auritus is not an abundant species in Iran, as the specimens collected by Morshed and Patton (2002) were few (two specimens). In their checklist of mammals of Fars Province, Zarei et al. (2019) only recorded Brandt's Hedgehog, Paraechinus hypomelas, without giving details of its distribution in the province. In the southwest of Fars Province, H. auritus is sympatric with P. hypomelas and the latter species is more common.
Finally, molecular studies are needed to clarify the taxonomy and phylogeny of these lovely creatures in Iran, especially in the Zagros Mountains.