Morphological Study of Fossil Macaca cf. fuscata Detected in the Middle Pleistocene Matsugae Fauna Excavated from the Cave Deposits in Northeastern Kyushu, Japan

Abstract

Middle Pleistocene Matsugae vertebrate fauna including 14 species of mammalian and one reptilian fossils were reported by Tokunaga (1931) and Naora (1944) from cave deposits in the Matsugae limestone quarry, Mojidistrict, northeastern Kyushu Island, Japan. Among the specimens of this assemblage, only two taxa of carnivores were described by Naora (1958 and 1968), while other taxa have remained without paleontological description until now. In this paper, a fossil skull of a macaque from this assemblage is identified as that of a juvenile Macaca cf. fuscata based on dentition. Results of statistical analyses of the milk teeth size of 68 individuals belonging to four species of Macaca suggests that the Pleistocene M. fuscata tends to have larger teeth than any modern East Asian form from the "fascicularis group (Fooden, 1976)" including modern M. fuscata. This conclusion is in accordance with the previous opinion pointed out by Shigehara et al. (2002) that M. fuscata from human ruins of the Jomon Period in the Early Holocene had larger molars than the modern ones. The fossil macaque from Matsugae would be of significant value in interpreting the origin of M. fuscata