The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Quaternary vertebrate faunas from Sumba, Indonesia: implications for Wallacean biogeography and evolution

Quaternary vertebrate faunas from Sumba, Indonesia: implications for Wallacean biogeography and evolution
Quaternary vertebrate faunas from Sumba, Indonesia: implications for Wallacean biogeography and evolution
Historical patterns of diversity, biogeography and faunal turnover remain poorly understood for Wallacea, the biologically and geologically complex island region between the Asian and Australian continental shelves. A distinctive Quaternary vertebrate fauna containing the small-bodied hominin Homo floresiensis, pygmy Stegodon proboscideans, varanids and giant murids has been described from Flores, but Quaternary faunas are poorly known from most other Lesser Sunda Islands. We report the discovery of extensive new fossil vertebrate collections from Pleistocene and Holocene deposits on Sumba, a large Wallacean island situated less than 50 km south of Flores. A fossil assemblage recovered from a Pleistocene deposit at Lewapaku in the interior highlands of Sumba, which may be close to 1 million years old, contains a series of skeletal elements of a very small Stegodon referable to S. sumbaensis, a tooth attributable to Varanus komodoensis, and fragmentary remains of unidentified giant murids. Holocene cave deposits at Mahaniwa dated to approximately 2000–3500 BP yielded extensive material of two new genera of endemic large-bodied murids, as well as fossils of an extinct frugivorous varanid. This new baseline for reconstructing Wallacean faunal histories reveals that Sumba's Quaternary vertebrate fauna, although phylogenetically distinctive, was comparable in diversity and composition to the Quaternary fauna of Flores, suggesting that similar assemblages may have characterized Quaternary terrestrial ecosystems on many or all of the larger Lesser Sunda Islands.
0962-8452
Turvey, Samuel T.
94878b58-7a92-4081-a8a3-f47181f240a9
Crees, Jennifer J.
74aa5a1e-de0d-4ab8-9078-fb72b45f3461
Hansford, James
e6171635-c273-46b7-aa2e-fbbb2ffdcb79
Jeffree, Timothy E.
338574dc-6a20-4275-a080-3ec2eb745a17
Crumpton, Nick
fb6a437c-5283-49df-bd1d-17e3d7f94c06
Kurniawan, Iwan
67e2cbe8-82d5-4609-b177-e30a46e1f506
Setiyabudi, Erick
6d7ac66f-e642-4838-af83-7b180f7d237c
Guillerme, Thomas
4bdb9c9a-6ba0-4bfa-b87d-5adcc74f1553
Paranggarimu, Umbu
0eb20400-c427-43b7-85d5-871b3dd1ba4a
Dosseto, Anthony
75da8a0d-f420-4d80-87b2-b3df9f22cc64
Van Den Bergh, Gerrit D.
cec2a9cb-d1ef-4619-b32f-ca69ffd7aa8e
Turvey, Samuel T.
94878b58-7a92-4081-a8a3-f47181f240a9
Crees, Jennifer J.
74aa5a1e-de0d-4ab8-9078-fb72b45f3461
Hansford, James
e6171635-c273-46b7-aa2e-fbbb2ffdcb79
Jeffree, Timothy E.
338574dc-6a20-4275-a080-3ec2eb745a17
Crumpton, Nick
fb6a437c-5283-49df-bd1d-17e3d7f94c06
Kurniawan, Iwan
67e2cbe8-82d5-4609-b177-e30a46e1f506
Setiyabudi, Erick
6d7ac66f-e642-4838-af83-7b180f7d237c
Guillerme, Thomas
4bdb9c9a-6ba0-4bfa-b87d-5adcc74f1553
Paranggarimu, Umbu
0eb20400-c427-43b7-85d5-871b3dd1ba4a
Dosseto, Anthony
75da8a0d-f420-4d80-87b2-b3df9f22cc64
Van Den Bergh, Gerrit D.
cec2a9cb-d1ef-4619-b32f-ca69ffd7aa8e

Turvey, Samuel T., Crees, Jennifer J., Hansford, James, Jeffree, Timothy E., Crumpton, Nick, Kurniawan, Iwan, Setiyabudi, Erick, Guillerme, Thomas, Paranggarimu, Umbu, Dosseto, Anthony and Van Den Bergh, Gerrit D. (2017) Quaternary vertebrate faunas from Sumba, Indonesia: implications for Wallacean biogeography and evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284 (1861), [20171278]. (doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.1278).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Historical patterns of diversity, biogeography and faunal turnover remain poorly understood for Wallacea, the biologically and geologically complex island region between the Asian and Australian continental shelves. A distinctive Quaternary vertebrate fauna containing the small-bodied hominin Homo floresiensis, pygmy Stegodon proboscideans, varanids and giant murids has been described from Flores, but Quaternary faunas are poorly known from most other Lesser Sunda Islands. We report the discovery of extensive new fossil vertebrate collections from Pleistocene and Holocene deposits on Sumba, a large Wallacean island situated less than 50 km south of Flores. A fossil assemblage recovered from a Pleistocene deposit at Lewapaku in the interior highlands of Sumba, which may be close to 1 million years old, contains a series of skeletal elements of a very small Stegodon referable to S. sumbaensis, a tooth attributable to Varanus komodoensis, and fragmentary remains of unidentified giant murids. Holocene cave deposits at Mahaniwa dated to approximately 2000–3500 BP yielded extensive material of two new genera of endemic large-bodied murids, as well as fossils of an extinct frugivorous varanid. This new baseline for reconstructing Wallacean faunal histories reveals that Sumba's Quaternary vertebrate fauna, although phylogenetically distinctive, was comparable in diversity and composition to the Quaternary fauna of Flores, suggesting that similar assemblages may have characterized Quaternary terrestrial ecosystems on many or all of the larger Lesser Sunda Islands.

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 21 July 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 August 2017

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 414075
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/414075
ISSN: 0962-8452
PURE UUID: 2c64b4cd-cd94-4055-a353-ee10b1cd3177

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 14 Sep 2017 16:31
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 16:00

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Samuel T. Turvey
Author: Jennifer J. Crees
Author: James Hansford
Author: Timothy E. Jeffree
Author: Nick Crumpton
Author: Iwan Kurniawan
Author: Erick Setiyabudi
Author: Thomas Guillerme
Author: Umbu Paranggarimu
Author: Anthony Dosseto
Author: Gerrit D. Van Den Bergh

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×