Estimating the dwarfing rate of an extinct Sicilian elephant

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Baleka, S., Herridge, V.L., Catalano, G., Lister, A.M., Dickinson, M.R., Di Patti, C., Barlow, A. ORCID: 0000-0002-5532-9458, Penkman, K.E.H., Hofreiter, M. and Paijmans, J.L.A., 2021. Estimating the dwarfing rate of an extinct Sicilian elephant. Current Biology. ISSN 0960-9822

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.037

Abstract

Evolution on islands, together with the often extreme phenotypic changes associated with it, has attracted much interest from evolutionary biologists. However, measuring the rate of change of phenotypic traits of extinct animals can be challenging, in part due to the incompleteness of the fossil record. Here, we use combined molecular and fossil evidence to define the minimum and maximum rate of dwarfing in an extinct Mediterranean dwarf elephant from Puntali Cave (Sicily).1 Despite the challenges associated with recovering ancient DNA from warm climates,2 we successfully retrieved a mitogenome from a sample with an estimated age between 175,500 and 50,000 years. Our results suggest that this specific Sicilian elephant lineage evolved from one of the largest terrestrial mammals that ever lived3 to an island species weighing less than 20% of its original mass with an estimated mass reduction between 0.74 - 200.95 kg and height reduction between 0.15 - 41.49 mm per generation, respectively. We show that combining ancient DNA with palaeontological and geochronological evidence can constrain the timing of phenotypic changes with greater accuracy than could be achieved using any source of evidence in isolation.

Item Type:

Journal article

Publication Title:

Current Biology

Creators:

Baleka, S., Herridge, V.L., Catalano, G., Lister, A.M., Dickinson, M.R., Di Patti, C., Barlow, A., Penkman, K.E.H., Hofreiter, M. and Paijmans, J.L.A.

Publisher:

Elsevier BV

Date:

18 June 2021

ISSN:

0960-9822

Identifiers: