Late-Holocene bats of Mé Auré Cave,New Caledonia: Evidence of human consumption and a new species record from the recent past

Abstract

Flying-foxes and smaller, insectivorous bats, as well as birds, frogs, lizards, rodents and humans, are among Holocene vertebrate remains recovered from a cave near Mé Auré on the central southwestern coast of Grande Terre, the main island of New Caledonia, southwest Pacific. New Caledonia is one of the world’s most critically endangered biodiversity hotspots whose native terrestrial mammals consist of nine bat species, six of which are endemic. The Mé Auré Cave deposit accumulated over a period of some 3000 years, from before colonization of the area by people to the present. In the deposit’s upper levels, bat remains approximate the modern New Caledonian fauna – with the notable exception of the first record of a leaf-nosed bat from these islands – and probably represent bats that lived and died in the cave as well as those brought in as prey by barn owls. In the lowest levels, only flying-foxes are represented, their corroded teeth and other evidence suggesting they were cooked and eaten by people. Our data indicate that at least one insectivorous bat species has become extinct during the last 250 years in New Caledonia. Alternatively, it is possible that this leaf-nosed bat continues to be part of the threatened extant New Caledonian bat fauna but has yet to be recorded by modern faunal surveys.