Tanimbar Islands Research Articles

Morphological analysis of house mice, Mus musculus (Rodentia, Muridae) in Southern and Eastern Indonesia and Western Australia

ABSTRACT Univariate and multivariate statistical analysis of 14 skull, dentary and dental characters and five external characters recorded from 78 specimens of Mus musculus indicated the occurrence of two distinct forms in southern and eastern Indonesia. The two forms were distinct from Mus musculus domesticus in Western Australia. The more widespread form was attributed to M. m. castaneus which occurred on Bali, Lombok, Flores, Lembata, Alor, Kai, Banda, Neira, Timor and Roti islands. The other form all of which are new record for the reason from Kisar and Tanimbar Islands (which represent new distributional records for Mus musculus), differed consistently from M. m. castaneus. Descriminant Function Analysis (DFA) using a reduced set of five skull, dental and external characters correctly allocated 98% of individuals to their appropriate form; bulla length, C1M3 length and M1 length were important discriminants between the two forms. Unlike local populations of Western Australian M. m. domesticus, which ...

The petroleum potential of inversion anticlines in the Banda Arc

The Banda Arc in eastern Indonesia and newly independent Timor-Leste (East Timor) is the zone of collision between the northern margin of the Australian continent and an oceanic island arc system bordering the Eurasian plate. Structurally, the Banda forearc is a fold and thrust belt, consisting of the imbricated outer edge of the Australian continent, overlain locally by fragments of the precollisional oceanic forearc. The Banda forearc is an established petroleum province in the island of Seram, but the remainder of the forearc has so far yielded no further exploration success despite close geological similarity to Seram. A major disincentive to exploration in the Banda forearc has been a common perception of structural complexity. This complexity may, however, have been overstated, and this paper presents a simple structural model for the evolution of the Banda forearc.Key to this model is the recognition of basement-involved inversion structures in the deeper parts of the collision complex. The inverted graben basins are filled with PermianJurassic continental margin sequences, including high-quality source rocks of Late TriassicEarly Jurassic age, and contemporaneous potential reservoir sequences, sealed by MiddleLate Jurassic shales. These Jurassic shales also act as an important decollement horizon, separating shallow-level structural complexity from a simpler structural style beneath, characterized by large inversion anticlines. The Oseil field in Seram may be located in such an inversion anticline, and comparable prospective structures are identified elsewhere in the Banda forearc, particularly in Timor and the Tanimbar islands.

Male horn dimorphism, phylogeny and systematics of rhinoceros beetles of the genus Xylotrupes (Scarabaeidae : Coleoptera)

Male horns in several groups of beetles represent a special class of secondary sexual characters in which condition-dependent, alternate developmental programs produce not only a bimodal horn-size distribution, but also discrete male mating behaviours correlated with these alternate phenotypes. While these intrasexual dimorphisms have recently received theoretical and experimental attention concerning how they are produced and modified, less has been focussed on the macroevolutionary behaviour of the ontogenetic mechanism that produces them. The developmental program that produces alternate male morphologies is manifested by a non-linear horn-size allometry that has been noted to vary within and among various taxa according to its shape and position. The purpose of the present study is to produce a preliminary measure of the macroevolutionary behaviour of these allometric characters as a function of defined phylogenetic scale among the rhinoceros beetles of the widespread genus Xylotrupes.A phylogenetic analysis performed herein suggests that Xylotrupes is monophyletic and is composed of six lineages, which are treated as discrete species. The taxon Xylotrupes gideon of previous literature is shown to constitute five species. Explicit rationale, including morphological diagnoses and evidence of reproductive isolation, supports a new, readily testable taxonomic scheme that recognises the following species: Xylotrupes florensis in the Lesser Sunda and Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia; X. meridionalis in Sri Lanka and India; X. ulysses in Sulawesi, Moluccas, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Melanesia; X. pubescens in the Philippines, Sumatra and Sulawesi; X. mniszechi in south-central and south-east Asia and China; and X. gideon in west Malaysia, Borneo and the Indonesian archipelago from Sumatra through the Lesser Sunda Islands. Subspecies are recognised in some of these taxa and are based upon geographic and phylogenetic partitioning.As in other groups of beetles, the sigmoidal allometric relationship of horn size to body size produces bimodal horn-size distributions in the males of all the species of Xylotrupes in which adequate samples were obtained. The present data show that there is more variation in allometric shape but less variation in allometric position in Xylotrupes than in dung beetles of the genus Onthophagus. Moreover, the phylogenetic patterns of variation in horn allometry among the taxa of Xylotrupes indicate that as much variation in allometric position and shape occurs among the subspecies of a single species, X. ulysses, as occurs among the remainder of the species in this genus.Evidence is provided that allometric position in Xylotrupes is responsive to interspecific competition inasmuch as character displacement of body size relative to horn size occurs in newly discerned sympatric populations of X. gideon and X. pubescens zideki. Further, major evolutionary modifications in allometric shape in two subspecies of X. ulysses have apparently occurred independently and involve fundamentally different adaptive mechanisms.These results suggest that modifications in the developmental program that controls male horn dimorphism are a principal feature of diversification in the beetles of the genus Xylotrupes.

The conservation status of Tanimbar corella and blue-streaked lory on the Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia: results of a rapid contextual survey

Two parrot species, Tanimbar corella Cacatua goffini and blue-streaked lory Eos reticulata, endemic to the Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia, were regularly trapped and sold into the international wild bird trade prior to 1992. Following concerns about numbers entering the trade, but with little knowledge of the remaining wild population or socio-economic role of bird trapping on the islands, international trade in both species was suspended at the 1992 CITES meeting. This paper reports on a rapid survey conducted on the islands in 1993 as a follow-up to the decision on trade. The survey attempted to determine the status of the wild populations, the distribution and activity of the human population, the interaction between Tanimbar corella and agriculture, and the structure of the local commodity-chain for wild-caught parrots. We found that: (a) both parrot species were widely distributed and present at relatively high densities across the largest island in the group, Yamdena; (b) catching of parrots is geographically limited; (c) in the case of Tanimbar corella, at least, the catching is of birds raiding crops and probably involves mainly immature and non-reproductive birds; (d) the international and domestic ban on catching was generally adhered to locally but the reasons for the ban were not widely understood, contributing to a general mistrust of conservationists that still remains. Although not advocating a lifting of the ban on trapping, we do conclude that in this case invoking the precautionary principle without proper consideration of local context may have been counterproductive to conservation goals.

The conservation status of Tanimbar corella and blue-streaked lory on the Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia: results of a rapid contextual survey

AbstractTwo parrot species, Tanimbar corellaCacatua goffiniand blue-streaked loryEos reticulata, endemic to the Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia, were regularly trapped and sold into the international wild bird trade prior to 1992. Following concerns about numbers entering the trade, but with little knowledge of the remaining wild population or socio-economic role of bird trapping on the islands, international trade in both species was suspended at the 1992 CITES meeting. This paper reports on a rapid survey conducted on the islands in 1993 as a follow-up to the decision on trade. The survey attempted to determine the status of the wild populations, the distribution and activity of the human population, the interaction between Tanimbar corella and agriculture, and the structure of the local commodity-chain for wild-caught parrots. We found that: (a) both parrot species were widely distributed and present at relatively high densities across the largest island in the group, Yamdena; (b) catching of parrots is geographically limited; (c) in the case of Tanimbar corella, at least, the catching is of birds raiding crops and probably involves mainly immature and non-reproductive birds; (d) the international and domestic ban on catching was generally adhered to locally but the reasons for the ban were not widely understood, contributing to a general mistrust of conservationists that still remains. Although not advocating a lifting of the ban on trapping, we do conclude that in this case invoking the precautionary principle without proper consideration of local context may have been counterproductive to conservation goals.

Biogeography of Indonesian snakes

The islands of eastern Indonesia occupy the major zone of contact and overlap between the reptile faunas of the Asian and Australo–Papuan regions. A survey of reptiles on twenty‐eight islands in eastern Indonesia between 1988 and 1993 has documented several major range extensions and many new records of species on islands. The zoogeographic affinities of the snakes of Indonesian islands are re‐examined in the light of both recent surveys and taxonomic research and coupled with that published previously. The major boundary in the snake fauna of Indonesia occurs between Sulawesi and the Lesser Sunda islands to the west and the northern and southern Maluku group of islands to the east; it corresponds to the major biogeographic boundary known as Weber's Line. The biogeographic affinities of the snakes of the Tanimbar islands are equivocal. The snake fauna of islands within the Lesser Sunda group indicate that separation between islands during the Pleistocene played a role in determining current assemblages and variation within species The islands of eastern Indonesia form biogeographic subregions that have relatively high levels of endemism and evidence of incipient speciation as a consequence of changes in sea‐levels and climate during the Pleistocene.

Uppermost Jurassic-lower cretaceous radiolarian chert from the Tanimbar Islands (Banda Arc), Indonesia

This paper describes and figures Mesozoic Radiolaria from cherts in Pulau Ungar, Tanimbar Islands, eastern Indonesia. Two assemblages of Radiolaria are recognised. The lower assemblage is indicative of upper Tithonian (uppermost Jurassic) to Berriasian (lowermost Cretaceous) and the upper assemblage is of upper Valanginian to Barremian age. These are the first precise ages obtained from the Ungar Formation, a unit including sandstones with apparently good petroleum reservoir characteristics.

From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender, and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands. SUSAN MCKINNON

<i>From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender, and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands</i>. SUSAN MCKINNON

From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender, and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands. By Susan McKinnon. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. xvii, 324 pp. $37.00 (cloth); $16.50 (paper).

From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender, and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands. By Susan McKinnon. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. xvii, 324 pp. $37.00 (cloth); $16.50 (paper).

From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender, and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands

From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender, and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands

From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands.

From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands.

From a shattered sun: hierarchy, gender, and alliance in the Tanimbar Islands

Among a growing number of ethnographies of Eastern Indonesia that deal with cosmology, exchange and kinship, this book confronts issues originally broached by Edmund Leach and Claude Levi-Strauss, concerning the relation between hierarchy and equality in asymmetric systems of marriage. Based on fieldwork in the Tanimbar Islands, this book analyzes the simultaneous presence of both closed, asymmetric cycles and open, asymmetric pathways of alliance - or both egalitarian and hierarchical configurations. The book demonstrates that Tanimbarese society is shaped by the existence of multiple, differentially valued forms of marriage, affiliation and residence. Rather than seeing these various forms as analytically separable types, this book demonstrates that it is only by viewing them as integrally related - in terms of culturally specific understandings of houses, gender and exchange - that one can perceive the process through which hierarchy and equality are created.

The stratigraphic and structural evolution of the Tanimbar islands, eastern Indonesia

The Tanimbar islands in the southeastern sector of the Banda Arc, eastern Indonesia, form part of the collision complex between the Banda Arc subduction zone and the NW continental margin of Australia. The stratigraphy of the Tanimbar islands is comparable to the other large Banda forearc islands (Timor, Seram) in comprising Australian continental margin sequences added to the forearc/collision complex by accretionary processes. The oldest rocks so far recognised in Tanimbar are Middle-Late Triassic sandstones and Early-Middle Jurassic grey shales. Both these rock types have so far been found only in the ejecta of mud volcanoes which occur commonly throughout Tanimbar. The oldest rocks found in normal outcrop comprise a sandstone sequence of probable Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous age, here named the Ungar Formation. Following a major unconformity cutting out the Late Cretaceous and Palaeogene, the Miocene is represented by the siliciclastic Tangustabun Formation, and the succeeding carbonate clastic Batimafudi Formation. This entire sequence was deformed in the Pliocene, and is overlain unconformably by post-orogenic sediments of Early Pleistocene-Recent age. Structurally Tanimbar is closely comparable to western Timor, and can be interpreted in terms of foreland fold and thrust belt tectonics active during Pliocene arc-continent collision. Post-Pliocene deformation is marked by a thrust separating the western islands of the Tanimbar group from the main island of Yamdena, and by a zone of left-lateral wrench faulting cutting through the western half of Yamdena.

Incestuous Twins and the House Societies of Insular Southeast Asia

In "A Study of Customs Pertaining to Twins in Bali," Jane Belo (1970) addresses a puzzling question. When Balinese commoners gave birth to twins1 (in the 1930s), the parents and twins were banished from the village for a period, their house was dismantled, and a ritual of purification of the village was performed after the untoward event. The birth of twins to high nobles, by contrast, was greeted with joy. The reason for the difference in reception of twins between highand lower-status people rested on the belief "that the twins had had contact amounting to marital intimacy before birth, in the womb of the mother. For some this intimacy was a good and very portentous thing, and the high caste princes and priests claimed that the boy was born like a god, that he brought his wife with him out of the mother's womb" (Belo 1970:3). By this logic, commoner twins, far from the gods, were incestuous: "It is incestuous for opposite-sex twins to occupy a womb; but the higher the status, the less abominable the incest, since for the gods incest is proper" (Boon 1977:138). Twin-birth beliefs form a condensed icon for whole marriage systems in insular Southeast Asia's Indic States, where high nobles strive to marry close (at best, first cousins) while close marriage is abhorred or was prohibited to lower people. Incest or its compromise act, close marriage, in short, is a statement about status; among commoners, Geertz has remarked (1982), incest is less a sin than a status mistake. The "text" of incest prohibitions has been read in a variety of ways. Some commentators explicate the local meanings of particular societies' taboos, often implying that no persuasive general theory of "incest" can be put forward (e.g., Needham 1971:29). Persuasive or not, general theories continue to be generated by others who, admitting the prohibited categories vary, are impressed with the universality of a (variable) prohibition. Throughout this article I tack between a localist's concern with cultural meanings and social and political action, and a universalist's (especially structuralist's) comparative scope-but not beyond Oceania, and with no theory claiming to explain "the" incest taboo. Using "incest" as the rhetorical motivator, I use the occasion of this essay to recast the conceptualization of groupings in insular Southeast Asia, to explore the dynamics of marriage in the preferentially endogamous "cognatic" societies of insular

Some Comparative Notes on the Peaceful and Zebra Doves (Geopelia Striata ssp.) with Reference to their Taxonomic Status

SummaryThree forms of dove have been grouped in the species Geopelia striata—the Peaceful Dove G. s. placida of Australia: the Timor Dove G. s. maugeus of Timor and the Tanimbar Islands: and the Zebra Dove G. s. striata of Malaya and the East Indies. All three differ in the pattern and colour of the under-side and the Peaceful Dove is smaller and differs in the proportions of bill, legs, and wings. These differences are tabulated. The Peaceful Dove also differs in having a juvenile plumage like that of the other Australian Geopelia species. The Peaceful and Zebra Doves have different advertisement calls, that of the latter being longer and more complex, and the close contact or growl calls differ. In view of these differences the Peaceful Dove, and possibly all three forms, should perhaps be regarded as separate species until the relationships can be more clearly established.

Political Awakening in West New Guinea

ON AUGUST I5, i962, an agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands ended a thirteen-year dispute over the status of West Irian (West New Guinea). The agreement provided for a transfer of administration by the Netherlands to Indonesia after an interim United Nations period and contained provisions for realizing the act of granted to the inhabitants before the end of i969.1 However, the Netherlands administration had begun to implement its promises of self-determination during the last few years, and it claims that the small elite which has emerged reflects a genuine political consciousness. This article is concerned with the development of that consciousness. West Irian covers some i6iooo square miles of territory, most of which is dense swamp and rugged mountain. Contact with the outside world has been minimal. The designation of its people as was made by outsiders; its meaning is obscure; it may come from the time when slaveraiding expeditions from sultanates in the Moluccas collected their human cargo from the Papuan islands. The Dutch East India Company considered New Guinea a backwater and merely a convenient barrier against intruders into its lucrative spice trade. Effective Dutch occupation could not be claimed until i898 when posts were established at Manokwari in the north and at Fak-Fak in the southwest. Nevertheless, West Irian remained an almost forgotten land until the Pacific war. Administrative control was haphazard and limited to a few scattered posts along the fringes. So primitive were the inhabitants and so easy was it for the colonial government to attract semi-skilled and skilled personnel from other areas in Indonesia that village teachers, hospital attendants, and even policemen came almost exclusively from Ambon, Menado, and the Kei and Tanimbar islands.2 In this primitive society such men were part of the ruling caste, participating in a system of double colonialism. The expression Papua bodok (stupid Papuan) was employed by some of these outsiders whose air of superiority gradually came to be resented by the Papuans. On the other hand, Papuans used the term