[rustbucket]

I hadn't heard about the pigmy mammoths of the Channel Islands. That reminds me about the dwarf mammoths on Russian islands. Here are several interesting articles:

Evolution of dwarfing in insular elephants

Mammoths survive on island until 2000 BC

Dwarf elephants on Cyprus

I hadn't realized how widespread this phenomenon was or heard of Foster's Island Rule before, but your explanation makes sense.

[PatrickHenry]

I suspect there are lots of similar developments regarding isolated populations on islands. One example: Key Deer.

[capitan_refugio]

Last I heard, it is unclear whether the purported pygmy mammoths of Wrangell Island are the real thing or juveniles. However, the sparce remains found on the Balearic Islands east of Spain are probably legitimate. I had not read about the Cyprus site. I'm going to check out a couple of paleo journals next week.

On the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, a couple of nearly complete skeletons have been found in the dunes. Prof. Larry Agenbroad of Santa Barbara published several papers on these discoveries. The really good find was carbon dated to about 11,000 BC. In the mid-1990's the local geological society ran some field trips out to the sites. Got a few of us desk jockies to do a little field work.

Thanks for the links.

[capitan_refugio]

The Santa Rosa pygmy mammoth discovery was on the same island as the "Arlington Springs Woman" discovery. I recall blam posted something about that last year.