Tag Archives: indonesian

Scientists Obtain Rare Images of Indonesian Coelacanth

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First identified in 1997 and officially classified as a distinct species in 1999, the Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis) is one of only two extant species of coelacanths. This deep-sea fish closely resembles its ancient Cretaceous ancestors.

A deep diver approximately 1 meter behind the Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis) was found at a depth of 144 m in Northern Mark, Indonesia. Image credit: Alexis Chappuis.

Coelacanths belong to the group of fish known as Sarcopterygians and are characterized by their distinctive coastal dwelling.

Long believed extinct for 65 million years, coelacanths were serendipitously rediscovered in 1938 off the coast of South Africa by museum curators and local fishermen.

These fascinating fish possess unique features, including paired fins and lobed fins that resemble highly modified swim bladders.

Together with lungfish, they are among the closest living relatives to tetrapods, exhibiting several morphological traits not present in more distantly related vertebrates, like ray-finned fish.

The coelacanth first appeared in the early Devonian period, gradually diversifying during the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, with peak diversity observed in the early Triassic.

During the Cretaceous, they were classified into two families: the Latimeridae, which has survived as two species in the genus Latimeria, and the now-extinct Mawsoniidae.

Upon the discovery of the first living specimen, its resemblance to many fossilized forms from the Cretaceous period led to it being labeled a “living fossil,” indicating minimal evolutionary change over millions of years.

The two extant species are the coelacanth of the West Indian Ocean (Latimeria chalumnae) found near the Comoros Islands, and the coelacanth in the waters around Sulawesi, Indonesia.

The latter species is far better documented than its African counterpart, making its deep-reef habitat challenging to access for scientific observation, which has primarily relied on submersibles or remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

Left profile of the Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis), showcasing a unique pattern of white dots. Image credit: Alexis Chappuis.

The Indonesian coelacanth is a rarely documented medium-deep sea fish (non-tetrapod sarcopterygian), originally endemic to the Sulawesi region, primarily identified through bycatch in eastern Indonesia.

“Very few observations of this species have been made in situ, primarily using submersibles and ROVs.”

“The first direct in situ observations were reported following recent reconnaissance dives that explored the suspected habitat of the Indonesian coelacanth at depths exceeding 150 meters.”

Researchers encountered the Indonesian coelacanth in October 2024 during a deep dive in the Marc Archipelago, situated between Sulawesi and Western New Guinea.

“It is premature to assess the population of this newly identified Malukan coelacanth,” they stated.

“Since the Marc Archipelago connects Sulawesi and Western New Guinea, it suggests that the species is not confined to a single location.”

“Our recent findings, along with studies conducted in the mesophotic coral ecosystems of the Marc Archipelago since 2022, not only confirm the existence of Latimeria but also indicate a broader, more suitable habitat for coelacanths.”

“We hope this discovery will motivate local and national authorities to enhance conservation efforts in this biodiversity-rich region.

The research team’s paper was published online on April 23, 2025, in the journal Scientific Reports.

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A. Chapuis et al. 2025. The first record of a living coelacanth from Northern Mark, Indonesia. Sci Rep 15, 14074; doi:10.1038/s41598-025-90287-7

Source: www.sci.news

Ancient Peoples Transported Wallabies to the Indonesian Islands by Canoe

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Thousands of years ago

Mehd Halaouate, birdingindonesia.com

Dating back either 12 or 800 years ago, wild wallabies were caught and transported by canoe to nearby islands located dozens of kilometers away.

The Sahuru natives—a group of marsupials from a prehistoric landmass that eventually broke into Australia and New Guinea—likely accompanied human explorers and traders to the islands in Southeast Asia, providing food, decorative fur, and tools made from bones. This animal import is recognized as one of the earliest known instances of animal translocation, with established colonies thriving over millennia, according to Dylan Gaffney at Oxford University.

“This aligns with a broader understanding of how early humans managed, transported, and raised animals more deliberately than previously assumed. They didn’t merely endure in these tropical environments; they actively transformed them,” says Gaffney.

Research pertaining to species translocation typically prioritizes European explorers, who notably introduced invasive rabbits to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries and reintroduced horses to the Americas in the late 1400s and early 1500s.

However, in the 1990s, two types of marsupial bones were identified—Phalanger Orientalis Breviceps or Phalanger Breviceps, along with Bandicoot bones (Echymipera Kalubu)—from the Eastern Islands of New Guinea, and Brown Forest Wallabies (Dorcopsis Muelleri) found on an island west of Halmahera, roughly 350 km from Sahuru’s ancient shores.

Based on the age of nearby charcoal remains and the sediment layers, research teams estimate that the Wallabies arrived around 8,000 years ago, while other species date back to between 13,000 and 24,000 years ago.

The specifics of how these animals arrived on the islands remain unclear—whether by human transport or natural means. To explore this, Gaffney and his colleagues examined a new archaeological site in Indonesia’s Rajaanpat Islands.

There, thousands-of-years-old skeletons indicate that the colony of brown forest wallabies thrived on the island about 4,000 years ago, though the reasons behind this are still uncertain.

Radiocarbon dating in a cave inland revealed evidence of wallabies being hunted and cooked as far back as 13,000 years ago, further supported by findings from another island to the west that dates back 5,000 years.

The team also uncovered several bone tools utilized in hunting and textile work, suggesting human activity at least 8,500 years ago.

In investigating how these animals arrived on distant islands, the team employed computer modeling that accounted for the sea levels and environmental conditions of that era.

This modeling supports the theory that humans transported the animals via canoes, Gaffney explains. Without human assistance, Wallabies would have struggled to survive the treacherous oceanic journey that could have lasted over 24 hours, relying on vegetation rafts for days to reach the islands. While swimming to nearby islands is conceivable, it’s uncertain whether forest wallabies (modern or ancient) possessed the ability to swim.

In contrast, canoe trips would have taken only a few hours to a couple of days, a timeframe that likely would have been manageable for breeding animals.

These findings underscore a sophisticated understanding of species movement by humans well before the era of European colonial expansion. Tom Matthews, who was not involved in the research and is from the University of Birmingham, UK, states, “We frequently assume that these introductions began within the last 500 years, but the evidence indicates that humans were reshaping their ecosystems long before then.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Ancestors of Indonesian Hobbits Could Have Been Even Tinier

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Fragment of a humerus excavated at Mata Menge on the island of Flores, Indonesia

Yosuke Kaifu

700,000 years ago, humans lived on an island in Indonesia. Homo floresiensisThe so-called Hobbits lived on the same islands until much more recently, and while newly analyzed fossils may show their ancestors, the evolutionary story of these small-bodied hominins remains shrouded in mystery.

Fossil H. floresiensis Hobbit bones were first discovered in the Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores in 2003. The hobbit bones date back to between 90,000 and 50,000 years ago.

In 2016, Yosuke Kaifu Researchers from the University of Tokyo discovered hominin fossils at Mata Menge, an open-air archaeological site that was once a riverbed on the east side of Flores island. Approximately 700,000 years ago It includes part of a skull, part of a jawbone and six teeth, all of which are unusually small for a hominoid.

That the Mata Menge humans were the ancestors of hobbits was an obvious interpretation, but the fragmentary nature of the remains meant that no certainty was possible.

Kaifu and his colleagues described three new fossils from Mata Menge: two teeth and part of an important upper arm bone. This limb bone “finally allowed us to determine the body size,” Kaifu says.

Unfortunately, the humerus was not complete; it was broken along its shaft. To determine exactly where the bone broke, the team looked for key landmarks, such as grooves that support nerves and muscle attachment points. From these clues, the team determined that the bone broke about halfway through, and estimated its total length to be between 20.6 and 22.6 centimetres.

The bone microstructure shows characteristics that indicate it was from an adult. Using the humerus as a whole-body estimate, the team estimates that the Mata Menge hominin was between 93 and 121 cm tall, with the highest estimate being 100 cm. H. floresiensis The Liang Bua specimen is at least six centimetres tall, Kaifu said, making it the smallest adult hominin ever found.

This discovery H. floresiensis Kaifu says the species has long been suspected to be a descendant of a large species called a hominin. Homo erectus The Mata Menge teeth and the hominoids from the Mata Menge fossils are the first hominid species known to have lived outside of Africa, including on the Indonesian island of Java, about 1 million years ago. “I'm pretty sure they descended from those groups,” Kaifu says. This is based on the Mata Menge teeth and the hominoids from the Mata Menge fossils. Homo erectus From Java and because of the closeness of the date and location.

It has been suggested that a small number of Homo erectus They probably arrived on Flores by chance, where they lived in isolation, and then must have become smaller over the next 300,000 years, Kaifu says. “They were small early on, and they stayed small for a long time after that,” he says.

It's common for island animals to become smaller over the course of evolution because limited food resources and a lack of large predators mean there's no advantage to being large. Along these lines, Flores has been home to generations of dwarf elephants and other species.

But there is another explanation. Debbie Argue Australian National University, Canberra Small Species, Big Mystery: The Story of Homo floresiensis.

Argus said Mata Menge's teeth were: H. floresiensis Liang Bua's molar. For example, Mata Menge's molar has five sharp “cusps” H. floresiensis They have four molars. “There's no clear indication that anyone evolved into anyone else,” she says, and it's not clear why the latter evolved. H. floresiensis It would have evolved a slightly larger body than its ancestors. Homo erectus From the island.”

For these reasons, Argue says we shouldn't assume that the Mata Menge hominins were the ancestors of hobbits: “I would consider an alternative hypothesis, that they are a new, previously unknown species.” If island life could have caused one group of humans to evolve smaller in size, she suggests, it could have happened twice.

In 2017, Argue and his colleagues H. floresiensis Compared to other hominins, the closest known relatives are Homo erectus instead It is called the old species Homo habilisThis is known only from Africa. Based on this, they proposed the following: H. floresiensis It actually evolved in Africa, HabilisSome of them then migrated east, ending up on the island of Flores. Argue says more fossils are probably needed to settle the question of the hobbit's origins.

topic:

  • Human evolution/
  • Ancient humans

Source: www.newscientist.com

Oldest Evidence of Storytelling in Art Found in 51,200-Year-Old Indonesian Cave Paintings

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Archaeologists used a new technique called Laser Ablation U-series (LA-U-series) to re-date some of the oldest cave paintings in the Maros-Pangkep region of South Sulawesi and date stylistically similar motifs at other Maros-Pangkep sites. They found a minimum age of 50,200 years ago (± 2,200 years) for a hunting scene from the Leambur Sipong 4 cave site, first dated to a minimum of 43,900 years ago using a previous approach, meaning it is at least 4,040 years older than previously thought. They also assigned a minimum age of 53,500 years ago (± 2,300 years) to the newly described Leang Karampuang cave painting. Painted at least 51,200 years ago, the narrative work depicts human-like figures interacting with pigs and is now known as the world's oldest surviving example of figurative art and visual storytelling.

A 51,200-year-old mural from Leang Karampuan. Image courtesy of Griffith University.

Prehistoric rock art provides important insights into past human cultures, but is typically difficult to date in an accurate and reliable way.

Over the past few decades, solution-based U-series methods have been used to determine early dates for rock art in several regions, including Western Europe, island Southeast Asia, and Siberia.

In Spain, a handprint stencil was dated to at least 64,800 years ago by solution U-series analysis of the overlying calcite and attributed to Neanderthals.

Until now, the oldest evidence of representational art is a naturalistic painting of a warthog at Reang Tedonggae in Maros-Pangkep, Sulawesi, which was dated to at least 45,500 years ago using the solution U series.

“We have previously used uranium-series methods to date very ancient rock art in two areas of Indonesia, Sulawesi and Borneo, but our new laser ablation U-series (LA-U-series) technique is more accurate,” said Professor Maxim Aubert from Griffith University, lead author of the study.

“This will allow us to date the oldest calcium carbonate layers that formed in the murals and get a more accurate idea of when the murals were created. This will revolutionize the dating of murals.”

“The innovative technique we developed allows us to create a detailed 'map' of the calcium carbonate layers,” added study co-author Professor Renaud-Joannes Boyau from Southern Cross University.

“This feature makes it possible to precisely identify and avoid areas affected by natural diagenesis resulting from complex growth histories.”

“As a result, dating of rock art becomes more certain and reliable.”

The discovery that the Leang Karampuang paintings are at least 51,200 years old has important implications for understanding the origins of early art.

“Our results are very surprising. Apart from some controversial finds in Spain, none of the famous Ice Age rock arts in Europe are this old. This is the first time that Indonesian rock art has been dated to more than 50,000 years,” said the study's lead author Adi Agus Octaviana, a rock art expert at Jakarta's National Research and Innovation Agency and a doctoral student at Griffith University.

The scientists also used the LA-U series technique to re-date calcium carbonate deposits that lie above cave paintings at the Leang Bru Sipon 4 cave site.

The paintings, which consist of narrative “scenes” depicting figures interpreted as therianthropes (half-human, half-animal) hunting warthogs and dwarf buffalo, were estimated by the team to be at least 43,900 years old.

Using new techniques, the authors prove that the artwork dates to a minimum of about 48,000 years ago, making it 4,040 years older than present.

“The cave paintings at Leang Karampuang and Leang Bul Siphon 4 shed new light on a great period and the vital role of storytelling in art history,” said Professor Adam Blum of Griffith University, co-author of the study.

“It is remarkable that the oldest cave paintings found so far in Sulawesi consist of recognizable scenes – pictures of humans interacting with animals – and we can infer that the artists were trying to tell some kind of story.”

“This was a new discovery because the academic consensus on early figurative cave art was that it consisted of panels with single figures, no clearly defined scenes, and that pictorial representations that conveyed a narrative emerged much later in European art.”

This discovery suggests that narrative storytelling has been an important part of human artistic culture in Indonesia from very early times.

“Humans have probably been telling stories for much longer than 51,200 years, but because words don't fossilize we have to rely on indirect evidence like depicted scenes in artwork, and the Sulawesi artworks are the oldest such evidence known to archaeology so far,” Octaviana said.

of Investigation result Published in a journal Nature.

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AA Octaviana and othersl. The story of Indonesian cave paintings from 51,200 years ago. NaturePublished online July 3, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07541-7

Source: www.sci.news

Indonesian volcano eruption leads to tsunami warning and evacuation orders

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Indonesian authorities issued a tsunami warning Wednesday after the eruption of Mount Luang sent volcanic ash thousands of feet into the air. Authorities ordered more than 11,000 people to leave the area.

Indonesia’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center said there were at least five major eruptions in the past 24 hours at a volcano on the northern side of Sulawesi island. Authorities raised the eruption alert to the highest level.

Mount Luang spews hot lava and smoke on the north side of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island on Wednesday.
Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation/via AFP – Getty Images

At least 800 residents left the area early Wednesday.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, has 120 active volcanoes. It is prone to volcanic activity because it is located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a series of horseshoe-shaped seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean.

Officials urged tourists and others to stay at least 6.0 miles from the 778-meter-high Luang Volcano.

Officials fear that parts of the volcano could collapse into the ocean, causing a tsunami, like the 1871 eruption.

Taglandan Island, to the northeast of the volcano, is once again in danger, and residents have been advised to evacuate.

Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency announced that residents would be relocated to Manado, the nearest city on Sulawesi island, a six-hour boat ride away.

In 2018, the eruption of Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano caused parts of the mountain to fall into the sea, triggering a tsunami along the coasts of Sumatra and Java, killing 430 people.

Source: www.nbcnews.com