Discovery of Pleistocene fruit bat Rousettus and its coexisting non-volant micromammalian fossils from the Guilin Basin, South China
Received date: 2025-01-14
Online published: 2025-04-30
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In 2015, the discovery of mammalian fossils, paleolithic artifacts, and burned bones in the Maoershan Cave of the Guilin Basin, northeastern Guangxi, indicated that it is a late Middle Pleistocene Paleolithic site. In 2021, stratigraphic sectioning and the systematic screening of small mammal sand samples were conducted. This paper presents a comprehensive account of the new material of the fruit bat Rousettus leschenaultii, accompanied by a concise overview of the non-volant micromammals that coexisted with it in the Quaternary sediments of the Maoershan Cave. This finding marks the second occurrence of fruit bat fossils in China, contributing to our understanding of the dental morphology and past geographical distribution of Rousettus. The micromammalian assemblage of the Maoershan Cave is composed of 3 orders, 9 families, 26 genera, and 30 species, and exhibits notable similarities with those of the late Middle Pleistocene Yumi Cave, Xinglong Cave, Yanhui Cave, Mawokou Cave, Zhongliangshan, and Chuan Cave faunas. The biochronology of the micromammalian assemblage from the Maoershan Cave has been determined to be consistent with the late Middle Pleistocene, providing a new assemblage in the Pleistocene mammalian faunal sequence in southern China. The presence of abundant oriental forested elements indicates that the Guilin Basin used to be a humid and warm subtropical forest paleoenvironment similar to the contemporary environment during the late Middle Pleistocene.
Rana Mehroz FAZAL , HE Zhan-Wu , DU Bao-Pu , CHANG Mei-Jing , SHI Jing-Song , NI Xi-Jun , LI Qiang , ZHAO Ling-Xia . Discovery of Pleistocene fruit bat Rousettus and its coexisting non-volant micromammalian fossils from the Guilin Basin, South China[J]. Vertebrata Palasiatica, 2025 , 63(3) : 173 -188 . DOI: 10.19615/j.cnki.2096-9899.250430
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