The enigmatic bovid Duboisia santeng (Dubois, 1891) from the Early–Middle Pleistocene of Java: A multiproxy approach to its paleoecology Roberto Rozzi a, ⁎, Daniela Eileen Winkler b , John De Vos c , Ellen Schulz b , Maria Rita Palombo a, d a Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Roma“La Sapienza”, Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5, Roma, Italy b Biocenter Grindel & Zoological Museum, University of Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, Hamburg, Germany c Naturalis Biodiversity Center, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands d CNR, Istituto di Geologia Ambientale e Geoingegneria. Montelibretti (Roma), Italy abstract article info Article history: Received 14 July 2012 Received in revised form 11 February 2013 Accepted 13 March 2013 Available online xxxx Keywords: Body size Dental Areal Surface Texture Analysis (DASTA) Mesowear analysis Paleohabitat Island evolution During the Pleistocene, the Sunda Islands to which Java belongs were frequently connected with the East Asian mainland, permitting faunal elements of Indo-Chinese origin entering Java. Therefore, most Javanese mammalian taxa are close if not identical to their mainland relatives. In particular, three fossil bovids, com- monly found in the Early–Middle Pleistocene “Stegodon-Homo erectus fauna” (Bubalus palaeokerabau, Bibos palaesondaicus, and Epileptobos groeneveldtii), do not show any feature consistent with the evolutionary pat- tern of typical insular mammals. However, a fourth Javanese bovid, Duboisia santeng has been regarded as a typical insular endemic species due to its small size. However, since Duboisia has been claimed to be present in the late Middle Pleistocene of what is now peninsular Malaysia, the actual endemic insular status of this taxon needs further confirmation. In this study we aim to contribute to the debate by analyzing the autecology of Javanese Duboisia santeng, delving into its paleobiogeographic history and evolution. The multiproxy approach adopted here (body mass estimate, paleohabitat predictions, morphological comparison, mesowear analysis and Dental Areal Surface Texture Analysis DASTA) gave mutually consistent results and proved to be useful in supporting hypothesis regarding the complex evolution of insular faunas. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Java, one of the largest Indonesian islands, is famous for its fasci- nating fossil record (Van den Bergh et al., 1996; Widianto et al., 2001; Van Heteren and De Vos, 2012), which includes remains of the so-called “Pithecanthropus erectus” (nowadays called Homo erectus). During the Pleistocene, the Sunda Islands, to which Java belong, were frequently connected with each other and with the Southeast Asian mainland. During glacial phases the sea level dropped between about 50 and 200 m, resulting in the exposure of the Sunda Shelf (Voris, 2000). These temporary connections between the Sunda Islands and the Southeast Asian mainland permitted some faunal elements of Siva-Malayan origin, including bovids, to enter Java. Bovids are not so common in endemic Pleistocene insular faunas and are only recorded in Southeast Asia (Philippines), Japan (Ohdachi et al., 2009), and on some Mediterranean islands (Balearics, Sardinia, Sicily and perhaps Pianosa) (Palombo et al., 2006; Van der Geer et al., 2010; Palombo et al., 2013). Bovid diversity was, however, quite high in the Early–Middle Pleistocene of Java, in- cluding at least four species: Bubalus palaeokerabau (Dubois, 1908), Bibos palaesondaicus (Dubois, 1908), Epileptobos groeneveldtii (Dubois, 1908) and Duboisia santeng (Dubois, 1891)(Fig. 1). B. palaeokerabau was a large water buffalo or carabao, characterized by horn cores with a triangular cross section, which could reach a span of more than 2 m. B. palaesondaicus, a banteng-like bovine, had horn cores with an oval cross-section, curving backwards. E. groeneveldtii, was a leptobovine characterized by large horn cores, shifted farther behind the orbits, and a triangular occiput, with the upper angle formed by the parieto- occipital eminence. D. santeng was a small boselaphine with short and keeled horn cores (Hooijer, 1958; Bouteaux and Moigne, 2010), whose remains characterize the Trinil H.K. and Kedung Brubus Faunal units (Van den Bergh et al., 2001). In this study we aim to inquire into the autecology of D. santeng by applying several qualitative and quantita- tive methods (body-size estimation, paleohabitat predictions, morpho- logical comparison, mesowear analysis and Dental Areal Surface Texture Analysis (DASTA). This multiproxy approach enabled us to better under- stand the paleoenvironment of Java at the time of the Trinil H.K. Faunal unit and provided us with some hints as to the paleobiogeographic his- tory of the island. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology xxx (2013) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author at: Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Sapienza Università di Roma, P.le Aldo Moro, 5, 00185 Roma, Italy. Tel. +39 0649914785. E-mail address: roberto.rozzi@uniroma1.it (R. Rozzi). PALAEO-06448; No of Pages 13 0031-0182/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2013.03.012 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/palaeo Please cite this article as: Rozzi, R., et al., The enigmatic bovid Duboisia santeng (Dubois, 1891) from the Early–Middle Pleistocene of Java: A multiproxy approach..., Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2013.03.012