Dwarf elephant Totally Explained

Everything about Dwarf Elephant totally explained

Dwarf elephants are prehistoric members of the order Proboscidea, that, through the process of allopatric speciation, evolved to a fraction of the size of their modern relatives. Insular dwarfism is a biological phenomenon by which the size of animals isolated on an island shrinks dramatically over time. Fossil remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta (at Ghar Dalam), Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades Islands and the Dodecanese Islands. Other islands where dwarf elephants have been found are Sulawesi, Flores, Timor and other islands of the Lesser Sundas. The Channel Islands of California once supported a dwarf species of mammoth.

Mediterranean Islands

Dwarf elephants were once part of the Pleistocene fauna of all the larger Mediterranean islands, with the exception, for the time being, of Corsica. Mediterranean dwarf elephants have generally been considered as paleoloxodontine, derived from the continental Straight-tusked Elephant, Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus Falconer & Cautley, 1847. An exception is the dwarf Sardinian Mammoth, Mammuthus lamarmorae (Major, 1883), the only endemic elephant of the Mediterranean islands belonging to the mammoth line. A DNA research published in 2006 theorized that the Elephas creticus could be from the mammoth line too. This old theory, proposed by Dorothea Bate as early as 1905, isn't widely accepted. A scientific study of 2007 demonstrates the mistakes of the DNA research of 2006.
During low sea levels, the Mediterranean islands were colonised again and again, giving rise, sometimes on the same island, to several species (or subspecies) of different body sizes. These endemic dwarf elephants were taxonomically different on each island or group of very close islands, like the Cyclades archipelago.
There are many uncertainties about the time of colonisation, the phylogenetic relationships and the taxonomic status of dwarf elephants on the Mediterranean islands. Extinction of the insular dwarf elephants hasn't been correlated with the arrival in the islands of man. Furthermore, there has been suggested that the finding of skeletons of such elephants sparked the idea that they belonged to giant men for example cyclopses, because the center nasal opening bears similarities with a human orbit.

Sardinia

Mammuthus lamarmorae (Major, 1883)
Elephas antiquus (Acconci, 1881)
Elephas melitensis (Caria, 1965)

Sicily & Malta

Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus leonardii Aguirre, 1969

Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) mnaidriensis (Adams, 1874)

Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) melitensis Falconer, 1868

Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) falconeri Busk, 1867

Crete

Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) creticus (Bate, 1907)

Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) creutzburgi (Kyuss, 1965)

Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) chaniensis (Symeonides et al., 2001) After DNA research, published in 2006, it has been proposed to rename Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) creticus into Mammuthus creticus (Bate, 1907). Others proposed (in 2002) to rename all the described specimens of larger size under the new subspecies name Elephas antiquus creutzburgi (Kuss, 1965). In a recent study of 2007, it was argued for the groundlessness of the theory by Poulakakis et al. in 2006, showing the weak points of that DNA research.

Cyclades Islands

Remains of paleoloxodontine elephants have been reported from the islands of Delos, Naxos, Kythnos, Serifos and Milos. The Delos elephant is of similar size to a small Elephas antiquus, while the Naxos elephant is of similar size to Elephas melitensis. The remains from Kythnos, Serifos and Milos have not been described.

Dodecanese Islands

On the island of Rhodes, bones of an endemic dwarf elephant have been discovered. This elephant was similar in size to Elephas mnaidriensis.
Two groups of remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the island of Tilos. They are similar in size to Elephas mnaidriensis and the smaller Elephas falconeri, but the two groups indicate sexual dimorphism. The remains had originally been designated to Palaeoloxodon antiquus falconeri (Busk, 1867). However, this name refers to the dwarf elephants from the island of Malta. As a result, since no migration route between the two islands can be proved, this name shouldn't be used when referring to the elephant remnants from Tilos, although some scientists have accepted the temporal use of this name until further material can be examined. However this classification has been re-evaluated and since the Second International Mammoth Conference in 1999, these mammoths are no longer considered to be true "dwarf mammoths".

Indonesia

On Sulawesi and Flores evidence of a succession of distinct endemic island faunas has been found, including dwarfed elephants, dating until the Middle Pleistocene. Around the early Middle Pleistocene these dwarfed elephants were replaced by new immigrants of larger to intermediate sizes.

Flores

The present understanding of the succession of Stegodon species on Flores is that endemic dwarfs, represented by the Early Pleistocene species Stegodon sondaarii, became extinct around 840,000 years ago. These dwarf forms were then replaced by the medium to large-sized Stegodon florensis, a species closely related to the Stegodon trigonocephalus group found both in Java and in the islands of biogeographical Wallacea, separated by deep water from the Asian and Australian continental shelves.

Sulawesi

The dwarfed Stegodon sompoensis lived during the Pleistocene on the island of Sulawesi. They had a shoulder height of only 1.5m.

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