<国立科博専報>徳之島の更新世鹿化石

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Abundant Late Pleistocene deer fossils and a few other fossil mammals were excavated from the Pleistocene fissure deposits exposed on the sea cliff of the Ryukyu Limestone, located in southwest Tokuno-shima. Fossil deer bones from Tokuno-shima are morphologically referable to Cervus (Metacervulus) astylodon MATSUMOTO (=Ryukyu-jika) from the Okinawa Islands, but they are smaller than those of latter islands. It is supposed that the ancestral form of Ryukyu-jika from Tokuno-shima may have migrated from the Asiatic mainland via "Ryukyu land bridge" which was formed by the glacial lowering of sea level and uplifting of the "Shimajiri sea" in Early Pleistocene. Dwarfing of the deer in Tokuno-shima may have begun after the separation of Tokuno-shima from the Okinawa Islands by the Middle Pleistocene transgression called "Ryukyu coral sea".
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