Cyprus dwarf elephant

Cyprus dwarf elephant Temporal range: Late Pleistocene–0.009 PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Tooth
Conservation status
Extinct  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Proboscidea
Family:	Elephantidae
Genus:	Palaeoloxodon
Species:	P. cypriotes
Binomial name
Palaeoloxodon cypriotes Bate

The Cyprus dwarf elephant (Palaeoloxodon cypriotes) is an extinct species of elephant related to the living Asian elephant.

Description

Cyprus Dwarf Elephants were part of the prehistoric group of elephants who lived on islands during the Pleistocene epoch. Some other related species of elephants during this time were the genera Mammuthus, Elephas, and Stegodon; the genus Mammuthus includes the Woolly Mammoth, the genus Elephas includes the modern elephants, and the genus Stegodon includes offsets of genus Mammuthus.^{[citation needed]}

Believed to be descended from the straight-tusked elephant, this much smaller species inhabited Cyprus and some other Mediterranean islands after the Messinian salinity crisis, during the Late Pleistocene. Its estimated body weight was only some 200 kilogrammes, a weight reduction of 98% from its ancestors which weighed about 10 tonnes. The molars are less reduced in scale, being some 40% of the size of the mainland straight-tusked elephants. The factors responsible for the dwarfing of island mammals are thought to include the reduction in food availability, predation and competition. The Cyprus dwarf elephant roamed the world at least until 11,000 BC.

Remains of the first Cyprus Dwarf Elephant were discovered and documented by Dorothea Bate in 1902. She found the fossilized bones of the elephant in a cave in the Kyrenia hills of Cyprus. The species is also known under a synonym as Elephas cypriotes bate, which commemorates the paleontologist Dorothea Bate.^[1]

Excavations

Finds of whole or partial skeletons of this elephant are very rare. The first recorded find was by Dorothea Bate in a cave in the Kyrenia hills of Cyprus in 1902, described in a paper for the Royal Society in 1903^[2] and in a later paper for Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1905.^[3]

Human interference leading to the extinction to the Cyprus dwarf elephant has been a controversial topic over the last decade. A rising theory is that most of the elephants became deceased during the settlement of the Mediterranean islands. A claim to support this theory is that the early Greek settlers thousands of years later incorporated the dwarf elephant into their mythology calling them Cyclopses (one-eyed monsters).

See also

• Dwarf elephant
• Elephas
• Pygmy elephant
• Cyprus dwarf hippopotamus

References

• Davies, P., & Lister, A. M., Palaeoloxodon cypriotes, the dwarf elephant of Cyprus: size and scaling comparisons with P. falconeri (Sicily-Malta) and mainland P. antiquus in Cavarretta et al., op. cit. pp. 479–480
• Masseti, M., Did endemic dwarf elephants survive on Mediterranean islands up to protohistorical times? in Cavarretta, Gioia, Mussi & Palombo, La terra degli Elefanti, The World of Elephants (Rome, 2001) pp. 402–406
• Palombo, M. R., Endemic elephants of the Mediterranean Islands: knowledge, problems and perspectives in Cavarretta et al., op. cit.
• Simmons, A. H. (1999). Faunal extinction in an island society: pygmy hippopotamus hunters of Cyprus. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. p. 382. doi:10.1007/b109876. ISBN 978-0-306-46088-3. OCLC 41712246. 

Notes