Sengis: Elephant Shrews
After the flood

Rhynchocyon stuhlmanni (Charles R. Knight, 1913)

Elephant shrews are small, rodent-like mammals with elongated hinglimbs and long, flexible snouts that were originally considered to be insectivores related to the true shrews (Soricidae). Today, genetics suggests they are not closely related to insectivores, but are placed within the Afrotheria along with aardvarks, elephants, tenrecs, and other African mammals. Within that evolutionary clade (which creationists would certainly not consider a single baraminic lineage), elephant shrews are classified with the golden moles, tenrecs, and otter shrews in the Afroinsectivora. In keeping with the change in systematic perspective, elephant shrews are now often called sengis. The giant sengis of the genus Rhynchocyon stand apart from the smaller, ‘soft-furred’ sengis, differentiated by “structure of teeth, the bulla and the uterus, as well as in number of toes, movement patterns and physical size” (Olbricht and Sliwa 2014).

At least seven families make up the ‘elephant shrew’-like mammals (Macroscelidea). For a creationist, these may very well comprise a multi-familial baraminic lineage. In that case, a single pair of the ancestral ‘elephant shrew’ entered the Ark, and from that pair, after leaving the Ark, very quickly diversified into different family branches that dispersed around the world. The Adapisoricidae and Amphilemuridae are both known from fossils in North America and Europe, the Apheliscidae are known from fossils in North America and Asia, the Louisinidae are known from fossils in Europe, and the Afrohypselodontidae, Myohyracidae, and Macroscelididae are known from fossils in Africa. Six of these families ‘boomed’ in the immediate aftermath of the Flood, with fossils showing up in the Paleocene and Eocene, but then went ‘bust’ and disappeared (with Myohyrax making it to the Miocene). Only one family, the Macroscelididae, has survived to the present. At least twenty-one genera in that family are known from the Paleocene to the Holocene (modern day). Six genera are recognized to exist today in different regions of Africa.

Bushveld elephant shrew, Elephantulus intufi, in Namibia (CC BY-SA 3.0 Yathin sk)

Diversification in elephant shrews appears directly related to significant climatological events in Africa after the Flood. Aridification led to forest fragmentation, which may have disrupted gene flow in the Rhynchocyoninae, while the more arid-adapted Macroscelidinae could take advantage of new corridors to disperse to further regions (Smit et al. 2011). Rathbun (2009) noted that many soft-furred sengi species “occupy the extremes of terrestrial habitats,” including rocky (even boulder-specific) areas, gravel plains and other arid habitats. Rhynchocyon prefers closed-canopy forests, dense woods and scrub, and similar habitats.

The earliest fossil Macroscelidids show characteristics of herbivory, suggesting insect-eating as a later adaptation; the soft-furred sengis are now considered omnivorous, while Rhynchochyon is insectivorous (Rathbun 2009; Olbricht and Sliwa 2014). The highly mobile snout is used to help locate food through smell, but it is not a true ‘trunk’ or proboscis, as it does not grasp and carry food to the mouth (‘prorhiscis’ has been suggested, instead; Milewski and Dierenfeld 2013). A long tongue flicks small invertebrate prey into their small mouths (Rathbun 2009).