. Bulletin of the Natural History Museum Zoology. . Fig. 6 Exact position of trap in the Vohibasia Forest that captured the holotype specimen of Microgale nasoloi. The trap was placed about m off the ground and the trap opening was facing the direction of the canopy and it is most likely that the animal was descending the vine when captured. Note the thick woody understorey of the forest. (Photograph by S. M. Goodman). Vohibasia), these climatic shifts involved a mesic period starting before 5000 years Before Present (BP) and an arid period between 3500 and 2500 years BP (Burney, 1993). Th
. Bulletin of the Natural History Museum Zoology. . Fig. 6 Exact position of trap in the Vohibasia Forest that captured the holotype specimen of Microgale nasoloi. The trap was placed about m off the ground and the trap opening was facing the direction of the canopy and it is most likely that the animal was descending the vine when captured. Note the thick woody understorey of the forest. (Photograph by S. M. Goodman). Vohibasia), these climatic shifts involved a mesic period starting before 5000 years Before Present (BP) and an arid period between 3500 and 2500 years BP (Burney, 1993). These proposed shifts are mirrored in changes of species representation and habitat types of subfossils excavated from sites in southwestern Madagascar (Goodman & Rakotozafy, 1997) including Ampoza (Goodman, in press). Radiocarbon dates available from Ampoza include an AMS date of 1350 ± 60 BP from a bone of Hypogeomys antimena A. Grandidier, 1869, an endemic large rodent that no longer occurs in the region (Goodman & Rakotondravony, 1996). Further, bone remains of extinct giant tortoises from the site have been dated to 1910 ± 120 BP (Mahe & Sordat, 1972) and 2035 ± 35 BP (Burleigh & Arnold, 1986). Although these radiocarbon dates are more recent than Burney's proposed period of aridification, the important point for this discussion is that over the past few millennia there has been significant change in the environment of the Vohibasia and Analavelona region as reflected by the fauna. Over the past few years a number of studies have tried to correlate aspects of the speciation of certain Malagasy vertebrates with vicariant events derived from information on shifts in vegetational Fig. 7 Photograph of the live individual of the holotype of Microgale nasoloi (FMNH 156187). (Photograph by J. Durbin). communities during the Quaternary. These paleoecological extrapo- lations are derived almost exclusively from palynological data dating from the Holocene. In many c
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