Palaeoloxodon cypriotes

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Cyprus Dwarf Elephant
)

Cyprus dwarf elephant
Temporal range: Late Pleistocene–Holocene
Tooth
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Genus: Palaeoloxodon
Species:
P. cypriotes
Binomial name
Palaeoloxodon cypriotes
(Bate, 1904)

Palaeoloxodon cypriotes is an extinct species of

Asia Minor.[3][2] During subsequent periods of isolation the population adapted within the evolutionary mechanisms of insular dwarfism, which the available sequence of molar fossils confirms to a certain extent.[4]
The fully developed Palaeoloxodon cypriotes weighed not more than 200 kg (440 lb) and had a height of around 1 m (3.28 ft). The species became extinct around 12,000 years ago, around the time humans first colonised Cyprus.

Chronology

The Cyprus dwarf elephant is known from fossils dating from the early

Western Asia. It is likely that they arrived in Cyprus by swimming the distance between the Karpas Peninsula and southeastern Anatolia during an episode of low sea level, which even considering additional exposed land area is a minimum of 60 kilometers, further than the known swimming distance record for elephants (48 kilometers).[5] The youngest remains of P. cypriotes date to around 12,000 years before present.[5]

Description

Paleoloxodon cypriotes was comparable in size to Palaeoloxodon falconeri from Sicily (depicted)

Palaeoloxodon cypriotes was around 1 metre (3.3 ft) tall, amongst the smallest known for dwarf elephants alongside the Sicillian Palaeoloxodon falconeri.[5] The estimated body weight of P. cypriotes is only 200 kilograms (440 lb), a weight reduction of 98% from its ancestors which weighed about 10 tonnes. Their molars however were about 40% of the size of the mainland straight-tusked elephants' molars (with the teeth around the size of the milk molars of P. antiquus), which retained the same length-width ratio, but with reduced lamellae counts, with only 11 lamellae in the third molar as opposed to 18 in mainland P. antiquus.[6] The size reduction was the result of insular dwarfism, which is likely the result of the reduction in available food, predation and competition.[7]

Paleoecology

Cyprus exhibited a depauperate fauna during the Late Pleistocene, with the only other large mammal species being the Cyprus dwarf hippopotamus, with the only other terrestrial mammal species being the Cypriot mouse (which is still extant), and a species of genet (Genetta plesictoides).[7]

Excavations

Tusk of a young P. cypriotes

The first recorded find was by Dorothea Bate in a cave in the

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1905.[9] The species is also known under its synonym Elephas cypriotes.[10] Finds of whole or partial skeletons of this elephant are very rare, being heavily outnumbered by the Cyprus dwarf hippopotamus.[7]

Notes

References

External links