Miniature Mediterranean Mammoths

Insular dwarfism is a phenomenon that has occurred many times throughout evolution. What happens is that a population of some large animal becomes trapped on an island, out of contact with its mainland kin., Because the island has a limited size, it also has a limited amount of food on it, and this is a problem for a large animal that needs plenty to eat,

If the island is particularly small, of course, the animals in question are likely to die out, if not immediately, then dwindling over a few generations until they lack the genetic diversity to sustain themselves. On the other hand, if the island is a large one (such as, say, Britain) then there may not be a problem at all, and nothing happens beyond the usual genetic drift between isolated populations. 

Prehistoric Mammal Discoveries 2021

Lesmesodon, a weasel-sized hyenadont.
A new species from Early Eocene France was
 described this year

And so another year approaches its conclusion and the pandemic seemingly isn't done with us yet. I had to self-isolate after a positive test myself for a couple of weeks (no symptoms, though) but if there's one thing that doesn't interrupt, it's blogging, so everything went smoothly here. But now it's time for what's becoming a traditional look at the paleontological discoveries of the past year that didn't get covered here but are worthy of at least a brief mention.

Large Herbivores

When we think of vertebrate fossils, the first thing that pops to mind is almost certainly going to be a skeleton of some kind, or perhaps just part of one. But there are also such things as ichnofossils - fossilised remains of how an animal affected its environment that no longer include any physical part of the animal itself. Perhaps the most obvious of these are fossil trackways - footprints of long-gone animals preserved in mud or other soft material that has since turned to stone. A study published this year examined the tracks left by two species of fossil horse. One of them, a one-toed close relative of the living species inhabiting southern Canada during the Ice Ages, turned out to have been galloping at around 34 kph (21 mph), which is quite fast for its small size (perhaps it was running from something). More significantly, however, the three-toed Miocene horse Scaphohippus was using a relatively unusual gait called the "rack" typically only seen in specialised domestic breeds today. 

All the World's Deer: Sambar and Rusa

Sambar

Deer are predominantly woodland animals, so it's no surprise that the extensive warm forests of Southeast Asia, with their many isolated islands, are home to a number of different species. Some of these are closely related to the red deer that live in cooler environments further north, so much so that some authors have recommended moving them back into the genus Cervus to join the red deer and their immediate kin. 

Nonetheless, they do seem to form a distinct branch on the deer family tree - although how many species might be in that branch, and even which ones they might be, is debated. For much of the 20th century, just two or three species were recognised, but genetic evidence gathered in the 21st century has made it more obvious that some of the island forms have been isolated from their mainland relatives for long enough to become clearly distinct.