Late Quaternary vertebrates from the Bird's Head Peninsula, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, including descriptions of two previously unknown marsupial species

WA Museum Records and Supplements | Updated 9 years ago

Abstract - A systematic treatment of late Quaternary vertebrate remains from two archaeological cave sites in the Ayamaru Lakes region, central Bird's Head Peninsula, Irian Jaya, documents the occurrence of 41 mammal species, three bird species and an as-yet-undetermined variety of lizards, snakes and frogs. At least nine mammal species are recorded from the Bird's Head for the first time; two of these are described as new and three others are almost certainly extinct on the Bird's Head. The new species are a diminutive striped possum, genus Dactylopsila, and an unusual ringtail possum with no close relatives among extant New Guinean pseudocheirids; the latter species is allocated with considerable reservation to the genus Petauroides, which otherwise includes only the Australian Greater Glider, P. volans. An apparently new species of Pogonomelomys is left unnamed pending wider revision of this group.