A Pleistocene mammal assemblage containing Ailuropoda and Pongo from Tham Prakai Phet cave, Chaiyaphum Province, Thailand

Mammal remains have been collected during surveys between December, 2011 and April, 2013, in a cave in the Chaiyaphum Province, Northeastern Thailand, by a team from Mahasarakham University and the Natural History Museum of the National Science Museum of Thailand. The Tham Prakai Phet (the cave of glittering diamonds) is a long karstic cavity formed in a Permian dolomitic limestone and already known to contain Pleistocene mammals. In the 1990s, some fossil teeth provided by a monk were identified as Crocuta crocuta ultima, Rhinoceros sondaicus, Sus cf. barbatus, Muntiacus muntjak, Axis porcinus, Cervidae indet., Bos sauveli, and Naemorhedus sumatraensis. The collection studied in this work contains newly discovered taxa including: Pongo sp., Macaca sp., Ailuropoda melanoleuca, Panthera cf. pardus, Ursus thibetanus, Bos javanicus, Bos sp., Bubalus sp., Naemorhedus sp., Sus scrofa, Rusa unicolor, and Hystrix cf. indica. The new data reveal a considerably more diverse Pleistocene faunal assemblage than previously documented. The age of the fauna is Pleistocene, probably not older than the late Middle Pleistocene. Gnaw marks on some of the remains suggest that the assemblage was possibly at least partly accumulated by rodents.