Sizzling Europe

Known as prehistoric members of the order Proboscidea, dwarf elephants were once part of the Pleistocene fauna of all the bigger Mediterranean islands. There were skeletal remains of the creatures which were seen on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades Islands and the Dodecanese Islands.

The Mediterranean dwarf elephants are considered as paleoloxodontine which was derived from the continental Straight-tusked elephant. Every low sea level, the Mediterranean islands were said to be colonized repeatedly giving rise sometimes on the same island, to some species of various body sizes.

The said endemic dwarf elephants were then taxonomically different on every island or group of very close islands just like the Cyclades archipelago. There are a lot of uncertainties on the time of colonization, the phylogenetic relationships and also the taxonomic status of the dwarf elephants on the Mediterranean islands. However, the extinction of the elephants was not correlated with man’s arrival in the island.

dwarf elephant, europe, animal