Palaeoloxodon mnaidriensis

While previously thought to have inhabited both Malta and Sicily. P. mnaidriensis technically only represents the Maltese species, with remains from Sicily belonging to a separate species, provisionally referred to as P. cf. maidriensis[3] or P. ex gr. mnaidriensis.[4] They descended from a colonisation of Sicily by the straight-tusked elephant (P. antiquus) during the late Middle Pleistocene, around 200,000 years ago,[3] which replaced the even smaller one-metre-tall Palaeoloxodon falconeri, which had descended from a separate colonisation of Sicily by P. antiquus several hundred thousand years prior.[5]

P. mnaidriensis has nearly 90% body reduction compared to the ancestral form with an estimated shoulder height of about 1.8 metres (5.9 ft) and a mean body weight of about 1,100 kilograms (2,400 lb).[2] Another estimate gives a shoulder height of 2 m (6.6 ft) and a weight of 1.7 t (1.9 short tons).[6] Like P. antiquus the head has a well developed parieto-occipital crest at the top of the skull.[7]

The appearance of P. cf. mnaidriensis on Sicily marks a faunal turnover where the depauperate endemic fauna that characterised Sicily during the Early and early mid-Middle Pleistocene was profoundly altered by the arrival of some large mammals from the continental fauna of mainland Italy, including large predators like lions (Panthera spelaea), cave hyenas (Crocuta crocuta spelea) and wolves, and large herbivores including red deer, fallow deer, steppe bison, aurochs and the hippo Hippopotamus pentlandi, which coexisted with P. cf. mnaidriensis. The larger body size of P. cf. mnaidriensis in comparison to P. falconeri is suggested to be as a result of needing to defend against predators, as well as due to the presence of other competing herbivores. On Malta, the only other large mammal present aside from P. mnaidriensis was the dwarf hippopotamus Hippopotamus melitensis. Its ecology has been suggested to have been that of a mixed feeder (both grazing and browsing).[5][8][9]

The youngest records of P. cf./ ex gr. mnaidriensis are from what is now the island of Favignana off the coast of western Sicily dating to around 20,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum (though this date is likely to be a minimum age), which was connected to mainland Sicily during the Late Pleistocene, as well as San Teodoro Cave in northeast Sicily, which dates to sometime after 32,000 years ago. These individuals are estimated to have had a shoulder height of roughly 1.5 metres (4.9 ft), somewhat smaller than other described individuals of P. cf./ ex gr. mnaidriensis.[4]

• Dwarf elephant