Study shows why island-dwelling big animals that have downsized and tiny animals that have upsized tend to go extinct
Islands foster unique evolutionary dynamics. For large-bodied species, there is evolutionary pressure to get smaller because of limits to habitat area and food resources compared to the mainland.
Some endangered island species today include: the dwarf buffalo Tamaraw on the Philippine island of Mindoro, 21 per cent the size of its closest mainland relative; the spotted deer of the Philippine Visayan islands of Panay and Negros, 26 per cent the size of its closest mainland relative; and Jamaica's hutia, a rodent four and a half times bigger than its closest mainland relative.
It once was home to a dwarf elephant relative, giant rats and a giant stork, as well as a dwarf human species —The Hobbit disappeared about 50,000 years ago, shortly after our species,Flores man ... a model of a skull from the newly found species of hobbit-sized humans that lived about 18,000 years ago in Indonesia.
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