For the understanding of shrew communities, their coexistence and competition, the knowledge of diet partitioning among sympatric shrew species is crucial. In this study, the trophic niches of three coexisting Sorex species: S. alpinus, S. araneus and S. minutus were compared for the first time. Shrews were taken from a montane forest habitat in northern Slovenia (NS). A little known species, S. alpinus, fed mostly on Insecta (50 %) and Lumbricidae (25 %), as well as Lithobiomorpha, Araneae and Opiliones. Its diet differed significantly from the diet of S. araneus
and S. minutus. On the other hand, a nearly-perfect trophic niche overlap was found for S. araneus and S. minutus suggesting their great hindrance of competition for food. For comparison, S.araneus from a montane forest habitat in southern Slovenia (SS) was considered. Sorex araneus
from SS fed on 15 taxa, while the shrew diets in NS habitat were half
as diverse. In contrast to previous studies, the nearly-perfect overlap of trophic niches in S. araneus-S. minutus indicates that in montane
forest habitat, otherwise highly competitive shrews can share trophic niches.
Mathevolepis alpina sp. n. is described from an alpine shrew, Sorex alpinus, from the Carpathian Region of the Slovak Republic. The new species differs from other species of the genus by the morphology of the male copulatory apparatus, especially the cirrus, which is characterised by asymmetrical parabasal swelling. The new species represents the first record of cestodes of the genus Mathevolepis Spassky, 1948 in Europe, i.e. the western part of the Palaearctic Region. The geographical distribution of species of Mathevolepis is reviewed.