History of commensal rodents on Ishigaki Island (southern Ryukyus) reconstructed from Holocene fossils, including the first reliable fossil record of the house mouse Mus musculus in Japan

In Japan, there are no known reliable fossil occurrences of M. musculus, in contrast to several occurrences of Rattus at Middle Pleistocene to Holocene fossil localities. Thus, the fossil of M. musculus described here records the first reliable occurrence of the species in Japan, and is very important for documenting the first appearance of M. musculus in the southern Ryukyus in the early Holocene. The species is considered to have appeared much later in mainland Japan and the central Ryukyus.