WASHINGTON - A dwarf elephant the size of a Shetland pony once roamed the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. In the West Indies, a giant rat-like rodent tipped the scales at more than 400 pounds (180 kg), rivaling an American black bear. They were examples of the 'island effect,' a rule in evolutionary biology describing how large-bodied species tend to downsize...
A handout photo. A mounted skeleton of an extinct Sicilian dwarf elephant, the size of a Shetland pony, is seen at Museo Geologico “G. G. Gemmellaro” in Palermo, Sicily, Italy in this undated handout photo. Dwarf elephants that lived in Sicily and Cyprus were examples of the "island effect," a rule in evolutionary biology describing how large-bodied species tend to downsize on islands while small-bodied species upsize.
"Unfortunately, the slope of the extinction curve that began with the arrival of the first human voyagers and continued with the later waves of colonization has become even steeper in recent decades," said paleoecologist Roberto Rozzi of the Natural History Museum of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, lead author of the study published in the journalIslands foster unique evolutionary dynamics.
"Because of the island rule, you get all sorts of weird and wonderful animals on islands, many of which are already extinct. Of the still-extant species, islands harbor a large proportion of the diversity of terrestrial species on the planet and about 50 per cent of them are at risk of extinction. It's incredibly depressing," said paleoecologist and study co-author Kate Lyons of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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