''Mammuthus creticus'', or the Cretan dwarf mammoth, is an extinct species of dwarf

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

endemic to

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

sometime during the

Early Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial epoch (geology), sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, representing the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently esti ...

to early

Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, more widely known as the Middle Pleistocene (its previous informal name), is an Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale or a Stage (stratigraphy), stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocen ...

. It is known from fragmentary remains found in caves on the north coast of the island. It is the smallest known dwarf mammoth and among smallest known dwarf elephantids, with an estimated shoulder height of around in adults. It was probably descended from the large mammoth ''

Mammuthus meridionalis ''Mammuthus meridionalis'', sometimes called the southern mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth native to Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. Reaching a size exceeding modern elephants, unlike later Eurasian mammoth species, it was largely ...

'' native to mainland Europe during the Early Pleistocene.

Discoveries

The type locality is Cape Malekas on the Akrotiri peninsula northeast of

Chania Chania (, , ), also sometimes romanization of Greek, romanized as Hania, is a city in Greece and the capital of the Chania (regional unit), Chania regional unit. It lies along the north west coast of the island Crete, about west of Rethymno ...

, which probably dates to the

or early

. Other possible remains have been reported from Koutalas Cave to the west.

Description

''Mammuthus creticus'' is only known from fragmentary remains, including molar teeth, an incisor, a humerus, rib fragments, and a partial vertebra. With an estimated shoulder height of about and with a weight estimated at or , it was the smallest mammoth that ever existed, and among the smallest elephantids along with the comparably sized dwarf elephants ''

Palaeoloxodon falconeri ''Palaeoloxodon falconeri'' is an extinct species of dwarf elephant that lived during the Middle Pleistocene (sometime between around 500–200,000 years ago) on the Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Malta. It is amongst the smallest of all dwa ...

'' of Sicily and Malta and '' Palaeoloxodon cypriotes'' of Cyprus. Its size reduction was the result of

insular dwarfism Insular dwarfism, a form of phyletic dwarfism, is the process and condition of large animals evolving or having a reduced body size when their population's range is limited to a small environment, primarily islands. This natural process is disti ...

, where the body size of large mammals on islands reduces as the result of decreased food availability, predation and competition.

Taxonomy

The species was originally described as ''

Elephas ''Elephas'' is a genus of elephants and one of two surviving genera in the Family (biology), family Elephantidae, comprising one extant species, the Asian elephant (''E. maximus''). Several extinct species have been identified as belonging to t ...

creticus'' by

Dorothea Bate Dorothea Minola Alice Bate (8 November 1878 – 13 January 1951), also known as Dorothy Bate, was a Welsh palaeontologist and pioneer of archaeozoology. Her life's work was to find fossils of recently extinct mammals with a view to understandi ...

in 1907, who noted its similarity to ''Elephas meridionalis'' (now ''

''). After DNA research published in 2006, it was proposed to rename ''Elephas 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). A 2007 study criticised the results of the 2006 DNA study, showing that the DNA research was likely flawed. However, morphological data supports a placement in ''Mammuthus.'' It probably derived from ''Mammuthus meridionalis,'' or less likely, '' Mammuthus rumanus.''

Ecology

''Mammuthus creticus'' was one of only three mammal species native to Crete during the Early Pleistocene and the early Middle Pleistocene, alongside the dwarf hippopotamus ''

Hippopotamus creutzburgi ''Hippopotamus creutzburgi'', the Cretan dwarf hippopotamus, is an extinct species of hippopotamus from the island of Crete. It lived on the island from the Early Pleistocene to early Middle Pleistocene, and probably descended from '' Hippopot ...

'' and the giant rat '' Kritimys''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1344496 Mammoths Prehistoric Crete Prehistoric mammals of Europe Fauna of Crete Fossil taxa described in 1907

Discoveries

Description

Taxonomy

Ecology

See also

References