Salle des Tortues Géantes, Caverne de la Tortue (Holocene of Reunion)

Where: Reunion (21.1° S, 55.3° E: paleocoordinates 21.1° S, 55.3° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Holocene (0.0 - 0.0 Ma)

• The bones are poorly preserved and appear recent. The tortoise disappeared from this part of the island between 1717 and 1732 (Bour, 1980a), and Lepus nigricollis was introduced between 1868 and 1887 (Cheke, 1987), so the age of the animal remains is unknown.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: cave; lithology not reported

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by J.M. Probst, P. Brial in 1996

Collection methods: sieve

• Repository: Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Saint-Denis, La Reunion

Primary reference: C. Mourer-Chauviré, R. Bour, S. Ribes and F. Moutou. 1999. The avifauna of Réunion Island (Mascarene Islands) at the time of the arrival of the first Europeans. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 89:1-38 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 193997: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 10.06.2018

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Mammalia
 Rodentia - Muridae
Rattus sp. Fischer 1803 rat
 Lagomorpha - Leporidae
 Artiodactyla - Bovidae
Capra hircus Linnaeus 1758 domestic goat
 Theriamorpha - Tenrecidae
Tenrec ecaudatus Schreber 1778 common tenrec
Reptilia
 Testudines - Testudinidae
Aves
 Gruiformes - Rallidae
Dryolimnas augusti n. sp. Mourer-Chauviré et al. 1999 Réunion rail
 Procellariiformes - Procellariidae
"Puffinus pacificus" = Ardenna pacifica
"Puffinus pacificus" = Ardenna pacifica Gmelin 1789 wedge-tailed shearwater