Defining the Island Dwarfing Rate of an Extinct Sicilian Elephant Using Ancient DNA

Evolution on islands, and the often extreme phenotypic changes associated with it, has attracted much interest from evolutionary biologists. However, measuring the rate of change of a particular phenotypic trait of extinct animals can be challenging, due to the incompleteness of the fossil record. Here, we use combined molecular and fossil evidence to define the minimum and maximum rate of dwarfing in an extinct Mediterranean dwarf elephant from...