Reappraisal of the extinction of Canariomys bravoi, the giant rat from Tenerife (Canary Islands) Juan Carlos Rando a, * , Josep Antoni Alcover b , Bertila Galván c , Juan Francisco Navarro c a Departamento de Biología Animal (UDI Zoología), Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain b Departament de Biodiversitat i Conservació, IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB), Cr Miquel Marquès 21, 07190 Esporles, Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain c Departamento de Prehistoria, Antropología e Historia Antigua, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), E-38071 Canary Islands, Spain article info Article history: Received 20 February 2014 Received in revised form 10 April 2014 Accepted 13 April 2014 Available online Keywords: Aboriginal settlement Canariomys bravoi Insular rodent Quaternary extinctions Radiocarbon dating abstract All the Quaternary endemic rodents of the Canary Islands are currently extinct. The Lava Mouse Mal- paisomys insularis inhabited the easternmost islands, whereas the giant rats Canariomys bravoi and Canariomys tamarani lived in the central islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, respectively. Bones of C. bravoi have appeared in archaeological sites together with shellfish and butchery remains. Tradi- tionally, they have been considered as an evidence of the sporadic consumption of C. bravoi by the aboriginal people, in some instances as recently as the time of the first European contact (14th century AD). Accordingly, the extinction of C. bravoi has been linked to the European colonization of Tenerife. The plausibility of this extinction date has been explored through new radiocarbon dates obtained on selected C. bravoi bones and through a reappraisal of the published dates. Our analysis allowed us to establish an earlier last documented occurrence age for C. bravoi, prior to the third century cal BC, much earlier than previously assumed. The analysis of formerly published 14 C dates of archaeological remains from Tenerife shows that samples with confidence intervals (95.54%) that are older or overlap with the last documented record of C. bravoi were performed on materials with large sources of error (such as wood, charcoal or bulk ash-sediments). Conversely, the new radiocarbon dates and analyses presented herein are in agreement with the occurrence of an earlier rapid extinction linked to the first human presence on the island. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The three species of rodents known to have inhabited the Ca- nary Islands during the Quaternary are currently extinct. The Lava Mouse Malpaisomys insularis inhabited the Eastern islands (Fuer- teventura and Lanzarote) and islets, while the giant rats Canariomys bravoi and Canariomys tamarani occupied the central islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, respectively (Fig. 1). M. insularis survived to the introduction of the House Mouse Mus musculus and the aboriginal settlement of the islands, that took place sometime be- tween 756 cal BC and 313 cal AD (Alcover et al., 2009), a time range established from AMS 14 C dating on bones of introduced M. musculus and on bones of endemic fauna on sites lacking it. The extinction of M. insularis was probably an asynchronous process that correlates with the introduction of the Black Rat Rattus rattus by European sailors that took place before 650 cal AD in Lanzarote and after the 13th century in Fuerteventura (Rando et al., 2008, 2012). Available information on C. tamarani and on its extinction is very scarce (López-Martínez and López-Jurado, 1987; López- Jurado and López-Martínez, 1988). Published radiocarbon dates of C. bravoi bones collected from palaeontological sites (lava tubes) cover a time span from 12,230 Æ 140 BP (12,880e11,810 cal BP) to 2305 Æ 40 BP (471e 208 cal BC) (Michaux et al., 1996; Bocherens et al., 2006). Since the weight of this rodent could exceed 1 kg, hunting by aboriginal people, competition and predation by alien species have been proposed as factors that ultimately led to its extinction (Michaux et al., 1996; Bocherens et al., 2006). The discovery of C. bravoi bones in association with shellfish and livestock remains in an archaeological dwelling site in the north of the island (Las Arenas- 3) was initially interpreted as an evidence of its sporadic exploi- tation by the aboriginals until dates very close to the European contact (Galván et al., 1999) in the 14th century (Aznar et al., 2006). The archaeological site of Las Arenas-3 is a lava cave with three stratigraphic layers (ranging from III to I) (Galván et al., 1992). * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ34 922318380. E-mail addresses: canariomys@yahoo.es, jcrando@ull.es (J.C. Rando). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quascirev http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.04.013 0277-3791/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Quaternary Science Reviews 94 (2014) 22e27