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Let’s compare Macroscelides to Hemiechinus

Sunday, September 13, 2026 9:43

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Figure 1. Skulls of Hemiechinus (left) and Macroscelides (right).

This one escaped my notice until yesterday.
I still wonder about it (valid or not?). At this point in the large reptile tree (LRT, 2340 taxa) Macroscelides, the sengi (elephant shrew) now nests with Hemiechinus, the hedgehog (Fig 1).

The problem is simple: superficially these two taxa don’t look very much alike. One is spiky. The other is speedy. Even the teeth are dissimilar.

The solution is also simple: no other currently tested taxa look more like these two taxa.
So these two are stuck with one another. Evidently these two extant taxa had an ancient last common ancestor somewhere in Africa and sometime in the deep past.

One more thing…
Both have an oddly elevated cranium. It looks inflated in Macroscelides.

Figure 3. Rhynchocyon (above) and Macroscelides (below) compared. Though both are considered elephant shrews, they nest in separate major mammal clades in the LRT.

Make that two more things…
They both are placentals with a strongly perforated palatine, a trait more typically found in marsupials.

AAAK! I should have said three more things…
Macroscelides has a rare (for mammals) antorbital fenestra. In the same relative spot on the rostrum, Hemiechinus has something similar, but not as distinct (Fig 1), perhaps a proto-antorbital fenestra.

Sometimes you have to put two taxa together to see what you’re missing.
This is the human factor at play. Science requires insight and a matrix of scores.

That doesn’t happen until it happens.

This appears to be a novel hypothesis of interrelationships.
If not please provide a citation so I can promote it here.

Or provide a better = more parsimonious match for Macroscelides, the oddball in the bunch.

Hemiechinus auratus (Gmelin 1770) is a genus of hedgehogs. It contains two species, found in Central and South Asia

Macroscelides proboscideus (Shaw 1800, 10-30cm) is the extant round-eared elephant shrew or sengi. It is not a sister to Scutisorex, the hero shrew, nor related to Rhynchocyon another traditional sengi. Macroscelides is not related to elephants either, contra Wikipedia. The cranium is expanded with acoustic space on this nocturnal desert dweller. Diet includes insects, shoots and roots. The limbs are long and slender, making it one of the fastest small mammals.

References
Gmelin SG 1770. Nova Comm. Acad. Sci. Petropoli, 14: 519.
Shaw G 1800. General zoology or systematic natural history. Vol. I. Part 2. Mammalia. London: Printed for G. Kearsley.

wiki/Macroscelides
Long-eared_hedgehog Hemiechechinus

Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2026/09/13/lets-compare-macroscelides-to-hemiechinus/

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