Lipotyphla

Lipotyphla (cohort Unguiculata, order Insectivora) A suborder (or, more correctly, full order) that includes most extant insectivores, grouped into two superfamilies, Erinaceoidea, the hedgehogs and moon rat, and Soricoidea, the shrews and moles. Most are small, nocturnal animals showing many features, especially of the skull and teeth, similar to those of early fossil eutherians, for which reason the insectivores are held to be evolutionarily primitive.