The fauna of the Pleistocene Homo-bearing sites of Java has been well known for more than a century.A recent revision of the crocodylian remains confirmed both the validity of Gavialis bengawanicus and the synonymiza-...The fauna of the Pleistocene Homo-bearing sites of Java has been well known for more than a century.A recent revision of the crocodylian remains confirmed both the validity of Gavialis bengawanicus and the synonymiza-tion of Crocodylus ossifragus with C.siamensis.Here we report on a still unpublished crocodylian specimen collected by Eugene Dubois in the latest Early Pleistocene of Kali Gedeh that can be tentatively referred to the genus Crocodylus.The size of the specimen,the approximately 1 m long lower jaw in particular,indicat-ed that this crocodile attained a total length of approximately 6 or 7 m.Along with specimens from the Plio-Pleistocene of Africa,this material provides evidence for gigantism in Crocodylus.It is not clear whether or not the‘temperature-size rule’applies to fossil crocodylians,but due to the growing interest in predicting future temperature-related size changes of the extant organisms,it would be interesting to study in detail the past reac-tion to temperature changes of crocodylians and other terrestrial ectothermic animals.展开更多
基金This research has been supported by Fondi ex-60%Universitàdi Torino(to M.Delfino)by the Ministerio de Economía y Com-petitividad de España(CGL2011-28681 to M.Delfino).
文摘The fauna of the Pleistocene Homo-bearing sites of Java has been well known for more than a century.A recent revision of the crocodylian remains confirmed both the validity of Gavialis bengawanicus and the synonymiza-tion of Crocodylus ossifragus with C.siamensis.Here we report on a still unpublished crocodylian specimen collected by Eugene Dubois in the latest Early Pleistocene of Kali Gedeh that can be tentatively referred to the genus Crocodylus.The size of the specimen,the approximately 1 m long lower jaw in particular,indicat-ed that this crocodile attained a total length of approximately 6 or 7 m.Along with specimens from the Plio-Pleistocene of Africa,this material provides evidence for gigantism in Crocodylus.It is not clear whether or not the‘temperature-size rule’applies to fossil crocodylians,but due to the growing interest in predicting future temperature-related size changes of the extant organisms,it would be interesting to study in detail the past reac-tion to temperature changes of crocodylians and other terrestrial ectothermic animals.
