New specimens of late Quaternary extinct mammals from caves in Sánchez Ramírez Province, Dominican Republic

Abstract

During the late Quaternary, the island of Hispaniola supported one of the most diverse mammalian faunas in the West Indies. Much of this diversity was lost to extinction in the past 100,000 years, but the timing of these events is poorly known. Here we report the paleontological findings of a multidisciplinary investigation of caves in the central Dominican Republic. These findings include new 'last occurrence' dates for the rodents Isolobodon portoricensis and Brotomys cf. voratus that take these genera to the dawn of the historic era; a first record of a last-interglacial sloth, and the first report of the upper dentition of the giant heptaxodontid rodent Quemisia gravis.