page_title: Dwarf elephant
section_title: Crete
hierarchical_section_title: Dwarf elephant / The Mediterranean islands / Crete
caption_attribution_description: English: A skeleton of the Cretan Dwarf Elephant (Mammuthus creticus). Photographed in one of the expositions of Emmen Zoo, Emmen, the Netherlands. Nederlands: Een skelet van de Kreta Dwergolifant. Gefotografeerd in een van exposities van Dierenpark Emmen, Emmen, Nederland. Deutsch: Skelett eines kretischen Zwergelefanten. Fotografiert auf einer Ausstellung im Zoo Emmen, Emmen, Niederlande
context_page_description: Dwarf elephants are prehistoric members of the order Proboscidea which, through the process of allopatric speciation on islands, evolved much smaller body sizes in comparison with their immediate ancestors. Dwarf elephants are an example of insular dwarfism, the phenomenon whereby large terrestrial vertebrates that colonize islands evolve dwarf forms, a phenomenon attributed to adaptation to resource-poor environments and selection for early maturation and reproduction. Some modern populations of Asian elephants have also undergone size reduction on islands to a lesser degree, resulting in populations of pygmy elephants.
  Fossil remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades Islands and the Dodecanese Islands. Other islands where dwarf Stegodon have been found are Sulawesi, Flores, Timor, other islands of the Lesser Sundas and Central Java; all of these islands are in Indonesia.
context_section_description: Mammuthus creticus (Bate, 1907)
  Palaeoloxodon creutzburgi (Kuss, 1965)
  Palaeoloxodon chaniensis (Symeonides et al., 2001)
  Poulakakis and others proposed in 2002 to rename all the described specimens of larger size than Mammuthus creticus under the new subspecies name Elephas antiquus creutzburgi (Kuss, 1965).  After DNA research, published in 2006, it has been proposed to rename Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) creticus into Mammuthus creticus (Bate, 1907). In a recent study of 2007, it was argued for the groundlessness of the theory by Poulakakis et al. in 2006, showing the weak points of that DNA research. However, morphological data is at least equivocal, and may also support placement in Mammuthus.
caption: Skeleton of a Cretan dwarf elephant
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