The oldest gibbon fossil (Hylobatidae) from insular Southeast Asia: evidence from Trinil, (East Java, Indonesia), Lower/Middle Pleistocene

PLoS One. 2014 Jun 10;9(6):e99531. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099531. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

A fossil femur excavated by Eugène Dubois between 1891-1900 in the Lower/Middle Pleistocene bonebed of the Trinil site (Java, Indonesia) was recognised by us as that of a Hylobatidae. The specimen, Trinil 5703 of the Dubois Collection (Leiden, The Netherlands), has the same distinctive form of fossilization that is seen in many of the bonebed fossils from Trinil in the collection. Anatomical comparison of Trinil 5703 to a sample of carnivore and primate femora, supported by morphometric analyses, lead to the attribution of the fossil to gibbon. Trinil 5703 therefore provides the oldest insular record of this clade, one of the oldest known Hylobatidae fossils from Southeast Asia. Because living Hylobatidae only inhabit evergreen rain forests, the paleoenvironment within the river drainage in the greater Trinil area evidently included forests of this kind during the Lower/Middle Pleistocene as revealed here.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Archaeology
  • Discriminant Analysis
  • Femur / anatomy & histology
  • Fossils*
  • Geography
  • Hylobates / anatomy & histology*
  • Indonesia
  • Linear Models
  • Paleontology
  • Principal Component Analysis
  • Species Specificity
  • Time Factors

Grants and funding

The authors have no support or funding to report.