TAXONOMIC RELATIONSHIPS AMONG HEDGEHOGS O F THE SUBFAMILY ERINACEINAE(MAMMALIA, INSECTIVORA) DETERMINED BASING ON THE DATA OF RESTRICTION-ENDONUCLEASE ANALYSIS OF TOTAL DNA

The restriction analysis of total DNA was performed on the species of the subfamily Erinaceimae: Erinaceus europaes L., 1758, E. concolor Ma rtin, 1838; E. amurensis Schrenck, 1858, E. dauricus Sundevall, 1841, Hemiechinus auritus Gmelin, 1770, and H. hypomelas Brandt, 1838. The m ethod of analysis of light fragments of highly copied repeats of DNA a lter short restriction endonuclease hydrolysis (Fedorov et al., 1991) was used. Nine short restriction endonucleases were used. The specific banding patterns were observed in the region between 30 and 300 bp. T he study showed, that the observed banding patterns have the specific and generic, but not individual specificity. The present results suppo rt the validity of the taxa E. europaeus, E. concolor and E. amurensis as distinct species, genetically different from each other. Daurian h edgehog belongs to the genus IIemiechinus, not to Erinaceus. Brandt's hedgehog, probably, must be included into the genus Paraechinus.