Mammuthus lamarmorai

Sardinian mammoth Temporal range: 0.45–0.04  Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓ Pleistocene
Composite skeleton of known remains showing size of an adult compared to a human. Full scale bar 150 cm, with each black and white section being 10 cm
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Proboscidea
Family:	Elephantidae
Genus:	†Mammuthus
Species:	†M. lamarmorai
Binomial name
†Mammuthus lamarmorai (Forsyth Major, 1883)
Synonyms
Mammuthus lamarmorae Elephas lamarmorae

Mammuthus lamarmorai is a species of dwarf

M. lamaromorai is only known from a small number of remains, including a fragmentary partial skeleton, and isolated finds of other bones.^[1] Of the few known molars only one represents the rearmost tooth, which is 13 cm long and 6.9 cm wide, with at least eleven ridges on the enamel.^[2] The humerus reaches a length of 45 centimetres (18 in).^[3] The few discovered tusk fragments exhibit only a small maximum diameter of 3.5 centimetres (1.4 in). The length of the femur indicates a shoulder height of 1.4 metres (4.6 ft).^[3] Weight estimates have varied considerably, from 420 kilograms (930 lb) to 1,650 kilograms (3,640 lb).^[4] The small size of M. lamarmorai is due to a process of insular dwarfism, which occurred when its original large ancestors reached Sardinia and due to lower food supply and lack of potential predators they reduced their size.^[5][6]

Discovery

The holotype specimen of M. lamarmorai is a partial skeleton collected during the late 19th century from Guardia Pisano Hill near Gonnesa in southwest Sardinia, which was being excavated as a result of railway construction.^[1]

Most finds of M. lamarmorai were discovered on the west coast and in the western part of the island of Sardinia, and mainly comprise individual finds, but also belong to associated skeletal elements. The most important fossils are from Funtana Morimenta, a quarry south-southwest of

As a mammoth, M. lamarmorai's closest living relative is the modern Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). The occurrence of this mammoth already in the late Middle Pleistocene makes that a descent from the classic woolly mammoth (M. primigenius) rather unlikely, since this latter species first appeared in Europe during the Upper Pleistocene. Rather, it is thought that the steppe mammoth (M. trogontherii), which lived on the continent, is the likely ancestor of M. lamarmorai. The steppe mammoth's molars had only eleven ridges, a feature much more archaic than those of the woolly mammoth, which had twenty six ridges. The Cretan pygmy mammoth (M. creticus) and M. lamarmorai are the only known dwarf mammoths on the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, which were otherwise occupied by diminutive members of the genus Palaeoloxodon (also included sometimes in Elephas).^[5][6]

The remains from Guardia Pisano Hill were initially attributed by Luigi Acconci in 1881 to