Pygmy mammoth

Fossil of Mammuthus exilis

• Channel Islands of California

The dwarf mammoth (Mammuthus exilis ) is an extinct species of the family of elephants.

She lived about 30,000 to 12,000 years ago in the Channel Islands of California, and has - not unlike today there still occurring Island gray fox - forms a Inselverzwergung on. The dwarf mammoth only reached a shoulder height of 1.20 untill 1,80 meters, while related to him species of mammoth were almost twice as large. Particularly closely related was the up to 1,000 -pound dwarf mammoth with the prairie mammoth (Mammuthus columbi ), a weight could reach up to 10,000 kilograms.

Such Inselverzwergung was a common phenomenon in elephant -like, as they themselves fairly isolated location of their good buoyancy islands could colonize. So have also developed on the Siberian dwarf Wrangel Island mammoths survived there until about 4000 years ago. Also on the Mediterranean islands were originally a number of endemic dwarf elephants, as well as on some Indonesian islands like Komodo or Flores. Even an island dwarf form of a mastodon is known. Causes for the present Inselverzwergung were the predominant on the islands lack of food and lack of predators.

Swell

• The Paleobiology Database Mammuthus exilis
• National Park Service. Channel Islands National Park. The Pygmy Mammoth

• Extinct Proboscidea
• Proboscids