Dwarf Mammoth

The dwarf mammoth (Mammuthus exilis) is an extinct species of the family of the éléphantidé S. It lived approximately 30.000 years to 12.000 years before the present on the Chanel Islands of California and shows - in a way which points out enough the insular gray Renard which is always present there - forms of insular Nanisme. The height with the garrot of the dwarf mammoth went only from 1,20 m to 1,80 m whereas the mammoths which are related for him were almost twice higher. Whereas it reached hardly a ton, he was a close relation to the Mammouth of Colomb which could weigh some up to ten.

This kind of insular nanism was a very widespread phenomenon at the species of elephants, since their good aptitude for the stroke enabled them to colonize enough isolated islands. Thus developed in the Siberian island of Wrangel a dwarf form of Woolly mammoth which still lived there until approximately 2000 av. J. - C.. In the islands of the the Mediterranean also, a series of dwarf, and of the same elephants lived formerly in certain islands indonésiennes like Komodo or Florès. One knows even an insular dwarf form of Mastodonte S. the origins of the insular nanism are to be sought here in the chronic lack of food and the absence of predatory.

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