Sicilian dwarf elephant
| Sicilian dwarf elephant | ||||||||||||
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Skeleton of a Sicilian pygmy elephant in the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi in Syracuse , Italy |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Middle Pleistocene | ||||||||||||
| about 800,000 to 100,000 years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Palaeoloxodon falconeri | ||||||||||||
| ( Busk , 1867) | ||||||||||||
The Sicilian pygmy elephant ( Palaeoloxodon falconeri after the paleontologist Hugh Falconer , Syn . : Elephas falconeri ) is an extinct elephant species that belonged to the elderly elephants and is probably derived from the European forest elephant ( Palaeoloxodon antiquus ). He only reached about 90 cm shoulder height.
During the last glaciation , elephants from Africa and Europe reached the area of various later Mediterranean islands via a land connection that had been created by geological changes or the lower sea level . The remains of dwarf forms of the elephant and the mammoth were found in Crete , Malta , Sardinia , Sicily , Tilos and Cyprus . After the sea level rose again, the animals were cut off from their place of origin and developed as an independent group differently from their conspecifics on the mainland. Due to poor feeding conditions at the new location, the body size gradually decreased (phenomenon of island dwarfing ), so that Palaeoloxodon falconeri finally only reached a shoulder height of less than one meter. Its closest living relative is believed to be the African elephant ( Loxodonta africana ).
Skeletons of Sicilian dwarf elephants are on display in the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi in Syracuse and in the Museo Geologico Gemmellaro in Palermo.
literature
- MR Palombo: Endemic elephants of the Mediterranean Islands: knowledge, problems and perspectives. In: G. Cavarretta (Ed.): La terra degli elefanti. = The world of elephants. Atti del 1st congresso internazionale, Roma, 16-20 October 2001. Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, Rome 2001, ISBN 88-8080-025-6 , pp. 486-491, online (PDF; 45 kB) .