Mammuthus creticus

[Himmapaan]

'The smallest mammoth known to have ever lived has been identified by Natural History Museum scientists, and is reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society today'.

Press Association article.

Planet Earth article.

[sauroid]

very fascinating.

[ZoPteryx]

Shame it's extinct, I'd have one as a pet!

[Himmapaan]

A dinky mini mammoth pet.  I read today someone remarking that it was frequently described to have 'roamed' in all the reports about it, but 'toddle' seemed the more appropriate description. 

[Gwangi]

Really fascinating stuff. I always feel a jolt of pain reading about mammoths and the other megafauna, they were here so very recently. I would have loved to have seen them.

[Himmapaan]

Yes, it feels as though they're just on the cusp of being out of reach. It is a painful thought. And when one sees all those beautifully preserved mummies, too...

[Gwangi]

Yes, it feels as though they're just on the cusp of being out of reach. It is a painful thought. And when one sees all those beautifully preserved mummies, too...

On occasion when I'm in the outdoors it occurs to me that I live in a damaged ecosystem. Not just damaged by the spread of western civilization but by the people that came here thousands of years before and no doubt had some kind of impact on the megafauna. The westerners put a hurtin' on the landscape here but even before they arrived it was only a shadow of what it used to be. To think, where I lived was once comparable to Africa in mammal diversity. Fortunately I live in a place that is actually recovering from the impact of the early colonies so I can at least take solace in that much but it certainly feels more empty with the knowledge I know regarding its past. Like Aldo Leopold once said...One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.

[Himmapaan]

Indeed.

Like Aldo Leopold once said...One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.

Beautiful. The same can easily be said of life on the whole, I suppose... But I digress.