Was the dwarfed Palaeoloxodon from Favignana Island the last endemic Pleistocene elephant from the western Mediterranean islands?

ABSTRACT

This paper re-apprises the scant elephant remains belonging to a dwarf Palaeoloxodon of uncertain taxonomy collected during the 1980s from a cave on Favignana Island (Aegadian Archipelago, western Sicily). The elephant was recently ¹⁴C-dated to the Last Glacial Maximum (20,350–19,840 cal. BP), indicating that the Favignana elephant is likely the most recent insular endemic Palaeoloxodon species thus far reported from the Western Mediterranean. Dimensionally the remains are smaller than the late Middle-Late Pleistocene P. ex gr. P. mnaidriensis from Puntali Cave (Palermo), and similar in size to the P. ex gr. P. mnaidriensis individual from San Teodoro Cave (Messina) post-dating a flowstone U-Th dated to ca. 32 ka. Accordingly, the possibility that relict populations of Palaeoloxodon persisted on Sicily longer than previously believed remains an intriguing possibility. None the less, the available data do not clearly indicate whether or not the small dimensions and recent age of the Favignana elephant may reflect a Late Pleistocene colonisation of Favignana Island by small P. ex gr. P.mnaidriensis. Our palaeogeographic reconstruction of the Aegadian Islands does however demonstrate that Favignana was connected to Sicily during most of the Late Pleistocene, allowing elephants to disperse freely between Sicily and Favignana during the Last Glacial (MIS 4-MIS2).

KEYWORDS:

• Dwarf elephant
• Last Glacial Maximum
• ¹⁴C dating
• relict population
• Aegadian Archipelago
• Italy

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank museum staff for their kind assistance during M.E.S’ visits to collections: curator Pip Brewer and the NHMUK (Natural History Museum, London), Loïc Costeur and Martin Schneider (Naturhistorisches Museum Basel), Stephanie Renault (Museum national d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris) and Denise Hamerton (Iziko Museums, Cape Town The South African National Research Foundation (Grant no. 83352) are acknowledged for supporting Matthew’s PhD research through a research and a travel grant.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.