New paleontological data from the continental Plio-Pleistocene of Java

The results of a preliminary study of some assemblages of Murinae from continental Plio-Pleistocene deposits of Central and East Java, Indonesia are presented and discussed, in order to verify the biostratigraphical scheme worked out by Sondaar and his co-workers. Their correlation of the Grenzbank in the Sangiran Dome with the Trinil H.K. layer, as well as their paleoecological inferences are confirmed. The predominance of Rattus indicates a murid fauna that is very unlike the present Sundaic murid fauna and that has a more Indochinese character. The murids from the Satir fauna differ from the murids of the Trinil H.K. faunal unit, which may be due to difference in age as is indicated by Sondaar and colleagues’ biostratigraphical scheme. The subgenus Mus (Mus) has been encountered on the Sunda Shelf area for the first time as a native inhabitant.