Small mammals are just as likely to become extinct as larger species, although the latter receive disproportionate attention with respect to conservation activity and research. We focused on rarity, vulnerability to extinction and conservation status for small terrestrial mammals from the orders Soricomorpha and Rodentia occurring in the Balkans and Anatolia. Although these two regions have fewer mammalian species than Central Europe in very small biota areas (surface areas 4 km2), they accumulate species at a much faster rate with increases in surface area. The distribution ranges of fifteen species from a total of 88 (= 17%) are confined to this studied area, with eight species being endemic to Anatolia and six to the Balkans. High endemism is indicative of small ranges, i.e. of one form of rarity of Rabinowitz’s ‘seven forms of rarity’ model. The ranges of at least three species (Talpa davidiana, Myomimus roachi and Dinaromys bogdanovi) have declined since the Last Glacial Maximum. Although numbers of extinctions correlates strongly with the number of endemics, and species displaying both restricted distribution and low density are those most at risk of extinction, very little conservation activity and research is focused on small-range endemics.
A myxosporean species found to develop in the liver of 10 out of 24 common shrews, Sorex araneus L., caught in South Bohemia, Czech Republic, was identified as Soricimyxum fegati Prunescu, Prunescu, Pucek et Lom, 2007, the unique representative of the genus and the first myxosporean species known to develop from plasmodia to spores in a terrestrial mammal. The original description of this species, based on fixed material, is supplemented with new data based on fresh material and with partial sequence of SSU rDNA (GenBank Acc. No. EU232760). Phylogenetic analysis of SSU rDNA revealed that S. fegati is closely related to myxosporeans infecting gall bladders of freshwater fish.