The High-Speed Evolutionary Downsizing of Sicily's Dwarf Elephants

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The High-Speed Evolutionary Downsizing of Sicily's Dwarf Elephants AOC Sustainability

The Amazing Shrinking of Europe’s Colossal Straight-Tusked Elephants

Imagine massive elephants towering 15 feet tall and weighing over 30,000 pounds.. The vision seems straight out of a science-fiction movie, but these super-sized, straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxdon antiquus) were for real, making them among the largest mammals to ever live during the Pleistocene era.

Migrating out of Africa about 800,000 years ago, the giant straight-tusked elephants became widespread across Europe and Asia. Picturing these monumental-sized elephants roaming the British countryside is fantastical enough.

Now imagine that these same super-sized elephants dwindled in size over time — say a few hundred thousands of years or 40 generations and as few as 1500 years— after migrating south to the island of Sicily.

At 15 percent of their original size, the colossal-size elephants became dwarf elephants the size of a donkey. Visualize humans becoming the size of a rhesus macaque monkey, suggests Josh Davis, of Britain’s National History Museum, as a way to understand the focus on new research on Sicily’s dwarf elephants.

The groundbreaking analysis published last month in 'Current Biology', showcases just how rapidly evolutionary changes can occur when animals are isolated on an island.

What Elephant Crop Raids in Kenya's Masai Mara Are Telling Us About Future Conflict

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What Elephant Crop Raids in Kenya's Masai Mara Are Telling Us About Future Conflict

Elephants need large amounts of space to roam in search of food and water. Because of this, they often move outside the boundaries of protected areas – such as the Masai Mara National Reserve and wildlife conservancies – into areas where people live.

These people are impacted by elephants that eat and destroy farm crops. Sometimes their lives are threatened. This often creates fear and anger towards this species and sometimes leads to elephants being killed in retaliation.

These negative interactions – termed human-elephant conflict – pose a huge threat to populations of this endangered species.