Status of the common spotted cuscus Spilocuscus maculatus and other wild mammals on Selayar Island, Indonesia, with notes on Quaternary faunal turnover.

Abstract

Selayar Island, lying 16 km off the tip of Sulawesi's southernmost peninsula, has the world's most isolated population of common spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus) belonging to the same subspecies Sp. maculatus chrysorrhous as found in western New Guinea and the Moluccas. It was probably introduced to Selayar in the latter part of the Holocene by Austronesian praus returning from trading and fishing voyages to the aforementioned areas. From 14 to 19 February 1997 five days were spent on Selayar conducting a survey of its contemporary status there. Indications are that it has a dispersed and vulnerable population that persists in an archipelago of forest remnants, jungle regrowth and anthropogenic tree groves on this heavily populated, cultivated and substantially deforested island. Indeed, the species may owe its persistence on Selayar to the island's Moslem population, which due to Islamic dietary restrictions, for the most part, does not engage in cuscus hunting. Opportunistic observations of other larger wild mammals on the island reveal a contemporary fauna dominated by introduced ethnotramp species, many of which may have replaced extinct elements of a displaced original mammal fauna. An opportunistic observation of a pteropid resembling the striped-face fruit bat (Styloctenium wallacei) indicates that this Sulawesi species may extend to Selayar Island.