Rhynchocyon


Rhynchocyon is a genus of elephant shrew in the family Macroscelididae. Members of this genus are known colloquially as the checkered elephant shrews or giant sengis.
It contains the following four species:
The giant sengis are endemic to Africa, and usually live in lowland montane and dense forests. They typically eat insects such as beetles, termites, and centipedes, using their proboscises to dig them from the soil and its tongue to lick them up. They typically build ground level nests for shelter requiring dry leaf litter. Sengis live in monogamous pairs, defending hectare-sized territories. R. chrysopyguus, R. cirnei, and R. petersi are allopatrically distributed; with the more recently discovered R. udzungwensis and subspecies R. cirnei reichardi exhibiting parapatric distributions. Some introgression has taken place between R. udzungwensis and R. cirnei as detected by mtDNA. The integration was conducted between two different types of lineages, R. udzungwensis and R. cirnei reichardi. It is important to consider this integration amongst the two lineages because it give insight about the evolutionary history of the organism.