Dwarf elephant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dwarf elephants Temporal range: Pleistocene |
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| Skeleton of a Cretan Dwarf Elephant. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Proboscidea in part |
Dwarf elephants are prehistoric elephants, which lives in the Pleistocene period of history.
Fossil remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades Islands and Dodecanese islands. Other islands where dwarf elephants have been found are Sulawesi, Flores, Timor and other islands of the Lesser Sundas. They were members of a family of animals which had evolved to about a tenth of the size of elephants today they lived in many areas of the world including what are now called the Channel Islands of California.
They are considered to be one of the only elephant of the Mediterranean islands belonging to the mammoth line.
