Mammuthus creticus

Mammuthus creticus, the Cretan dwarf mammoth, is an extinct species of dwarf mammoth endemic to the island of Crete in the eastern Mediterranean, living sometime from the Early Pleistocene to the early Middle Pleistocene. It is known from fragmentary remains found in caves on the north coast, with its type locality at Cape Malekas on the Akrotiri peninsula near Chania. With an estimated shoulder height of about one metre and a weight estimated at 310 or 180 kilograms it was the smallest mammoth that ever existed and among the smallest elephantids, comparable to Palaeoloxodon falconeri and Palaeoloxodon cypriotes. Its small size is attributed to insular dwarfism. Dorothea Bate described it as Elephas creticus in 1907, and a 2012 morphological analysis supported its place in Mammuthus, probably descended from Mammuthus meridionalis. It was one of only three mammal species native to Crete at the time, alongside a dwarf hippopotamus and a giant rat.