Spatial modeling of extinct Southeast Asian Hobbit Homo floresiensis habitat suitability based on its diet availability and climatic parameters as a proxy

Abstract

The discovery of a new prehistoric species of the genus Homo remains a significant matter of intense interest. One of significant discovery recently is the Homo floresiensis, representing a small-bodied and small-brained hominin, excavated, and found in Liang Bua Cave in Flores Island, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. This species height was only about 106 cm (36") and the weight was 30-40 kg (66-86 lbs). H. floresiensis was known consumed extant murine rodents as its diets as this was evidence found in Liang Bua Cave. Then this study aims to model the H. floresiensis suitable habitat using maximum entropy method and 2 extant murine rodents, Rattus exulans and R. rattus as a proxy. The results show that the most suitable habitats for H. floresiensis indicated by suitable habitat values close to 1 were concentrated in the central of Flores Island that was overlapped with mountainous areas with elevation ranging from 1500 to 2000 m. These suitable habitats were also overlapped with dense vegetation covers, volcanic rock, and Kiro rock formation. Climatic parameters that limit the distributions of H. floresiensis were annual mean temperature, isothermality, minimum temperature of coldest period, and precipitation seasonality. Parts of Flores Island with the low temperature below 20 {degrees}C were favorable for H. floresiensis while an increase in isothermality limits the H. floresiensis distributions.