Insular Dwarfism - Famous Examples

Famous Examples

Among the most famous examples of insular dwarfism are:

• Dinosaurs, including the recently validated Europasaurus, on Mesozoic islands such as Haţeg Island, Romania. Other dwarf dinosaurs, mainly from Haţeg Island, include Magyarosaurus, Rhabdodon, Balaur bondoc and Telmatosaurus. Also, the dwarf nodosaurid Struthiosaurus from Europe.
• Dwarf ground sloths in the recent natural history of Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. (There is also a living dwarf tree sloth on Isla Escudo de Veraguas.)
• The Channel Islands mammoth which lived on the prehistoric island of Santa Rosae in the California Channel Islands, and the small woolly mammoths of Saint Paul Island off Alaska, and Wrangel Island north of Siberia.
• Dwarf elephants in the recent natural history of Malta, Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily.
• Dwarf stegodonts (elephant relatives) from the recent natural history of the Philippines, Flores, Sulawesi, Sumba and Timor.
• A recently confirmed separate species of hominid called Homo floresiensis, from fossils found on Flores Island in Indonesia.
• Small-bodied humans from Palau, Micronesia, similar in size to the Flores hominins (disputed).