When were elephants wiped out in Europe?

[KP]

As for the ancient Roman elephant remains:

“Hunts” [venationes] of imported beasts from Africa or Asia, and combat between beasts or between man and beasts. was quite common in the Roman Colosseum by the time of Sulla (ca. 100 BC). Hannibal poisoned himself at the court of Bithynia’s Prusia I (who was about to betray him to the Romans) in 183 BC. The two eras were contemporaneous within the limits of carbon dating when the remains were discovered.

[DrFidelius]

IIRC, Elephas falconi was, without looking it up (I don’t quite know where my copy of Mammal Evolution by Savage and someone else has gotten itself to), a pygmy elephant native to Malta. It was about the size of a Shetland pony.

[Polycarp]

*Originally posted by DrFidelius *
**IIRC, Elephas falconi was… a pygmy elephant native to Malta. It was about the size of a Shetland pony. **

So what you’re saying was that the Maltese Falcon was really an elephant? :o

[Daver914]

*Originally posted by Nichol_storm *
**Before the time of Charlemagne, at least. The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid sent him an Indian elephant named Abu al-Abbas as a gift in 801. Charlemagne adored the animal and was heartbroken when it died a decade later. **

I see someone’s been reading Will Cuppy…

[t-keela]

*Originally posted by sugaree *
**I read that a Mediterrean island (Malta?) had both dwarf elephants and giant dormice. Cool! **

Maybe that’s where the idea that elephants are scared of mice originated?

[Kristen]

If you spend much time at a zoo, you might see an elephant spot a small animal like a squirrel or pigeon.
They can keep turning their head and moving in circles to watch the thing, which gives the impress of being afraid, but is more like just passing the time in stir.

[First_Amongst_Daves]

Slightly off-topic: If indeed they existed in the European peninsula, why is it that frozen woolly mammoths seem to be always found in Siberia? Why not Scandanavia or Scotland? Is it because of the isolation of the Siberian tundra? Or are they in fact found throughout the arctic circle?

[Polycarp]

*Originally posted by The God of Muesli Bars *
**Slightly off-topic: If indeed they existed in the European peninsula, why is it that frozen woolly mammoths seem to be always found in Siberia? Why not Scandanavia or Scotland? Is it because of the isolation of the Siberian tundra? Or are they in fact found throughout the arctic circle? **

There’s a much larger area with permafrost to a depth that would encase a mammoth in Siberia than in Europe. Mammoth remains have been found in Alaska too, but owing to ground shifting over the past 10,000 years, more often than not the Alaskan remains are not intact carcasses but frozen mammothburger.

[First_Amongst_Daves]

*Originally posted by Polycarp *
**There’s a much larger area with permafrost to a depth that would encase a mammoth in Siberia than in Europe. Mammoth remains have been found in Alaska too, but owing to ground shifting over the past 10,000 years, more often than not the Alaskan remains are not intact carcasses but frozen mammothburger. **

Ah-ha! Many thanks, Polycarp.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

*Originally posted by Polycarp *
**There’s a much larger area with permafrost to a depth that would encase a mammoth in Siberia than in Europe. Mammoth remains have been found in Alaska too, but owing to ground shifting over the past 10,000 years, more often than not the Alaskan remains are not intact carcasses but frozen mammothburger. **

Not to mention the fact that Scotland, well, isn’t frozen.

You might as well ask why frozen mammoths aren’t often found in North Africa.

The real question here is how the hell did this relict family of mammoths get onto an island ?

Also, to those of you mentioning Hannibal- Hannibal’s elephants were imported from Africa via the strait of Gibraltar. They are no more native to Europe than the ones munching hay in Regent’s Park.

[Polycarp]

Amplification on permafrost: On researching this a bit, I find that it’s found in 85% of Alaska, 50% of Russia, 50% of Canada, and presumably ~100% of Antarctica. I woul;d have thought that the northern interior of Finland and Sweden would have cool enough summers to allow subsurface freezing to remain, but evidently that’s not true. So amend my “Europe” to “European Russia” – because there’s no permfa

[Polycarp]

razzin frazzin “Submit” button…

“…because there’s no permafrost elsewhere in Europe.” (And there’s no semicolon in “would” either.)

[Strychnos]

There are mammoth finds from many European countries, several from Finland, for instance. But since there is no permafrost, only bones survive to this day.