Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene sites in the montane forests of New Guinea yield early record of cassowary hunting and egg harvesting.

How early human foragers impacted insular forests is a topic with implications across multiple disciplines, including resource management. Paradoxically, terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene impacts of foraging communities have been characterized as both extreme-as in debates over human-driven faunal extinctions-and minimal compared to later landscape transformations by farmers and herders. We investigated how rainforest hunter-gatherers managed resources in montane New Guinea and present some of the earliest documentation of Late Pleistocene through mid-Holocene exploitation of cassowaries (Aves: Casuariidae). Worldwide, most insular ratites were extirpated by the Late Holocene, following human arrivals, including elephant birds of Madagascar (Aepyornithidae) and moa of Aotearoa/New Zealand (Dinornithiformes)-icons of anthropogenic island devastation. Cassowaries are exceptional, however, with populations persisting in New Guinea and Australia. Little is known of past human exploitation and what factors contributed to their survival. We present a method for inferring past human interaction with mega-avifauna via analysis of microstructural features of archaeological eggshell. We then contextualize cassowary hunting and egg harvesting by montane foragers and discuss the implications of human exploitation. Our data suggest cassowary egg harvesting may have been more common than the harvesting of adults. Furthermore, our analysis of cassowary eggshell microstructural variation reveals a distinct pattern of harvesting eggs in late ontogenetic stages. Harvesting eggs in later stages of embryonic growth may reflect human dietary preferences and foraging seasonality, but the observed pattern also supports the possibility that-as early as the Late Pleistocene-people were collecting eggs in order to hatch and rear cassowary chicks.

A new species of Pristimantis (Amphibia, Anura, Strabomantidae) from the Pui Pui Protected Forest (central Peru), with comments on Pristimantis albertus Duellman & Hedges, 2007.

We describe a new Pristimantis species from the eastern Andes, Región Junín, Peru following an integrative taxonomic approach. The description is based on three adult males (snout-vent length 25.7-28.8 mm) collected in two montane forests between 1615 and 1800 m a.s.l. in the Pui Pui Protected Forest and its close surroundings. The new species is mainly characterised by absence of tympanum, presence of inner tarsal fold, broad horizontal red band across iris, ventre mottled black and cream and ventral surfaces of thighs salmon and grey mottled. Amongst the Amazonian and montane forest Pristimantis that have the ventre and groin contrastingly black and cream mottled, P. sinschi sp. nov. is morphologically most similar to P. lindae and P. ventrimarmoratus. However, DNA barcoding revealed a clear distinction between these three species and placed P. sinschi sp. nov. as sister taxon of P. lindae. We designate a lectotype for P. ventrimarmoratus and restrict the type locality of this species to "El Topo, R. Pastaza, [Provincia Tungurahua,] E. Ecuador, 4200 feet". Pristimantis albertus and P. sagittulus are recorded for the first time in the Región Junín. Additional data on morphology and systematics are provided for P. albertus.