title: The oldest gibbon fossil (Hylobatidae) from insular Southeast Asia: evidence from Trinil, (East Java, Indonesia), Lower/Middle Pleistocene.
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.
authors.affiliation: Archaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Diliman, Philippines; Département de Préhistoire and UMR 7194, MNHN/CNRS, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ingicco
authors.affiliation: Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de Vos
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: O Frank
authors.initials: OF
authors.lastname: Huffman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001106:Archaeology; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005269:Femur / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005580:Fossils; D005843:Geography; D006922:Hylobates / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D007214:Indonesia; D016014:Linear Models; D010163:Paleontology; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D013045:Species Specificity; D013997:Time Factors