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Mini Mammoth Once Roamed Crete

Posted by samzenpus on from the lets-get-small dept.

ananyo writes "Scientists can now add a 'dwarf mammoth' to the list of biological oxymorons that includes the jumbo shrimp and pygmy whale. Studies of fossils discovered last year on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea reveal that an extinct species once thought to be a diminutive elephant was actually the smallest mammoth known to have existed — which, as an adult, stood no taller than a modern newborn elephant (abstract). The species is the most extreme example of insular dwarfism yet found in mammoths."

1 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. you know you thought the same thing... by Thud457 · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Mini Mammoth

    Is that like then jumbo shrimp?

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    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff