A recent paper on the occurrence of the genus Crocidura in Tunisia reports a single specimen identified as C. suaveolens. Therefore a third species, besides C. russula and C. whitakeri would occur in the country. However, the presence of C. suaveolens in North-Africa is controversial and was recently ruled out from the other Maghrebi countries (Algieria and Morocco). During the period 1989 - 90, 71 specimens of shrews were collected from owls pellets or trapped at Tunisian 12 sites. This material was measured and studied both by classic morphometric and multivariate methods (Fuzzy test, Principal Coordinate Analysis and Generalized Procrustes Analysis), considering also reference samples (C. suaveolens from Italy and Balearic Islands, C. russula and C. whitakeri from Morocco). Four of the 12 trapped shrews were karyotyped and resulted to have a C. russula karyotype, some differences in biometry as well as in Number of Fundamental arms (NFa) separate the Moroccan population from the Tunisian one and raise some interesting questions on the taxonomy of C. russula. Multivariate analysis also allowed us to exclude the presence of C. suaveolens from the Tunisian material studied and suggested also the misclassification of the proposed specimen that should be reconsidered as C. whitakeri. A preliminar distribution map of the two species living in Tunisia was drawn, also based on the scanty data from the literature.
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