Piebald shrew

The piebald shrew (Diplomesodon pulchellus) is a shrew found in the Turan Lowland east of the Caspian Sea in Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

It grows to 2 inches (5.1 cm) to 2.75 inches (7.0 cm) in length, and usually hunts for insects and lizards at night.

In 2011, A. Cheke described a new and possibly extinct species based on a 19th-century manuscript: Diplomesodon sonnerati (Sonnerat's shrew).

It was described again in 2018 to meet certain validity requirements of the ICZN code.

[3] The American Society of Mammalogists considers D. sonnerati to be a subspecies of the piebald shrew, if it exists.