Dwarf elephant facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Dwarf elephantsTemporal range: Pleistocene
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| Skeleton of a Cretan Dwarf elephant. | |
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Proboscidea
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Dwarf elephants are prehistoric elephants which lived in the Pleistocene period. They are an example of island dwarfism.
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 and the Channel Islands of California.
They are considered to be one of the only elephant of the Mediterranean islands belonging to the mammoth line.
Images for kids
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Detail of a painting in the tomb of Rekhmire in Egypt, possibly representing a "pygmy mammoth" (lower left) among other animals
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Palaeoloxodon falconeri skeleton cast
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Palaeoloxodon falconeri
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Dwarf elephant Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.