Paleontological, Pleistocene, mammal, Naracoorte Caves, fossil record, taxonomy, pitfall, palaeocommunity

This item is only available electronically.The Naracoorte Caves World Heritage Area (NCWHA) in southern Australia preserves an almost continuous fossil record of the last 500,000 years but contains a noticeable temporal gap between ~100 ka and ~200 ka. This study presents the first comprehensive assessment of a fossil assemblage from the Naracoorte region from this “gap”. Fossils analysed in this study were excavated from Specimen Cave by the author, in the first documented palaeontological excavation of this cave. Preliminary dating from previous studies gives Specimen Cave an age of ~130 ka, placing it within the missing gap. The Specimen Cave fossil assemblage preserves a rich and diverse fauna which, shares many similarities with other NCWHA deposits. The deposit is dominated by small mammals, which constitute >90% of the fauna. The most abundant family in the deposit was Muridae (rodents), which also has the greatest species richness and density of all families. The large mammal fauna, which constitutes a very minor (