Island dwarfing is a biological phenomenon by which the size of animals isolated on an island shrinks dramatically over generations. It is a form of natural selection in which smaller size provides a survival advantage. Examples of island dwarfing include: Natural selection is the process in which individual organisms that possess favourable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. ...

• Channel Island fox in California, United States
• Homo floresiensis in Flores, Indonesia
• Japanese Wolf in Japan
• Dwarf elephant species in Borneo and Flores (Indonesia), Cyprus, Crete and other Greek islands and Sicily
• The strange, tiny Balearic Islands Cave Goat (Myotragus balearicus) in Majorca and Minorca and its close relative Nesogoral, from Sardinia
• Balinese Tiger
• Philipine water buffalo, Tamaraw, Anoa and other dwarf bovids from South East Asia.
• Several species of Hippopotamus from the Pleistocene of Mediterranean islands and Madagascar
• Dwarf mammoths from Wrangel Island (Siberia) and California
• Dwarf deer species on Crete (Candiacervus ropalophorus), Ryukyu Islands of Japan (Cervus astylodon), Philippines (Rusa mariana) and Gargano (Hoplitomeryx).
• Island dwarfing is also thought to have occurred in dinosaurs and is illustrated in the Discovery Channel program Dinosaur Planet. Examples of this are the dwarf nodosaurid Struthiosaurus from Europe, and the dwarf allosaur from South Australia.

A process in the other direction is the increase of the body size in cold regions of the earth (see Bergmann's Rule). Bigger bodies reduce the surface-to-mass ratio which reduces the loss of energy, so bigger bodies have advantages over smaller ones. Examples: Binomial name Urocyon littoralis (Baird, 1857) The Island Fox (Urocyon littoralis) is a small fox that is native to six of the eight Channel Islands of California. ... Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 3rd 410,000 km² 402. ... Binomial name Homo floresiensis P. Brown et al. ... Map of Flores Island Flores (Portuguese for flowers) is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc with an estimated area of 14,300 km² extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. ... Trinomial name Canis lupus hodophilax (Temminck, 1839) The Japanese Wolf refers to two extinct subspecies of the grey wolf (　狼 or おおかみ ōkami). ... Dwarf elephants are pre-historic members of the order Proboscidea, that, through the process of allopatric speciation, evolved to a fraction of the size of their modern ancestors. ... Borneo and Sulawesi. ... Map of Flores Island Flores (Portuguese for flowers) is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc with an estimated area of 14,300 km² extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. ... Crete (Greek Κρήτη / Kriti; see Wiktionary: Crete for the name in other languages) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ... Sicilian disambiguates here; see also Sicilian language or Sicilian Defence. ... Capital Palma de Mallorca Official languages Catalan and Spanish Area  â€“ Total  â€“ % of Spain Ranked 17th  4 992 km²  1,0% Population  â€“ Total (2003)  â€“ % of Spain  â€“ Density Ranked 14th  916 968  2,2%  183,69/km² Demonym  â€“ English  â€“ Catalan  â€“ Spanish Balearic balear balear Statute of Autonomy March 1, 1983 ISO 3166... Binomial name Myotragus balearicus (Bate, 1909) The Balearic Islands Cave Goat Myotragus balearicus (in Greek, goat-rat of the Balearic islands) is the scientific name of a species of the subfamily Caprinae who lived in the islands of Majorca and Minorca until its extinction about 5000 years ago. ... Majorca (Mallorca in Catalan and Spanish, sometimes also encountered in English),: from Latin insula maior, later Maiorica, (major island) is one of the Balearic Islands (Catalan: Illes Balears, Spanish: Islas Baleares), which are located in the Mediterranean Sea and are a part of Spain. ... Flag of Minorca Minorca (Menorca both in Catalan and Spanish and increasingly in English usage; from Latin Balearis Minor, later Minorica minor island) is one of the Balearic Islands (Illes Balears Catalan official name, Islas Baleares in Spanish), located in the Mediterranean Sea, and belonging to Spain. ... Sardinia (Sardegna in Italian, Sardigna, Sardinna or Sardinnia in the Sardinian language, Sardenya in Catalan), is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (Sicily is the largest), between Italy, Spain and Tunisia, south of Corsica. ... Trinomial name Panthera tigris balica (Schwarz, 1912) The Balinese Tiger is an extinct species of tiger found solely on the small Indonesian island of Bali. ... Binomial name Bubalus arnee (Kerr, 1792) The Water Buffalo is a very large ungulate. ... Binomial name Bubalus mindorensis (Heude, 1888) The Tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis; previously Anoa mindorensis), Tamarao or Mindoro Dwarf Buffalo is a bovine endemic to the island of Mindoro in the Philippines. ... Binomial name Bubalus quarlesi (Ouwens, 1910) Bubalus depressicornis (H. Smith, 1827) There are two species of anoa: the Mountain Anoa (Bubalus quarlesi) and the Lowland Anoa (Bubalus depressicornis). ... Subfamilies Bovinae Cephalophinae Hippotraginae Antilopinae Caprinae A bovid is any of almost 140 species of cloven-hoofed mammals belonging to the family Bovidae. ... Binomial name Hippopotamus amphibius Linnaeus, 1758 The Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), from the Greek ‘ιπποπόταμος (hippopotamos, hippos meaning horse and potamos meaning river), is a large, plant-eating African mammal, one of only two living, and three or four recently extinct, species in the family Hippopotamidae. ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... Species Mammuthus columbi Columbian mammoth Mammuthus exilis Pygmy mammoth Mammuthus jeffersonii Jeffersonian mammoth Mammuthus meridionalis Mammuthus primigenius Woolly mammoth Mammuthus lamarmorae Sardinian Dwarf Mammoth A mammoth is any of a number of an extinct genus of elephant, often with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long... Wrangel Island (Russian: Остров Врангеля Ostrov Vrangelya) is an island in the Arctic Ocean, between the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas, and belonging to the Russian Federation. ... Siberia Siberia (Russian: , common English transliterations: Sibir’, Sibir; from the Tatar for “sleeping land”) is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan constituting almost all of northern Asia. ... Orders & Suborders Saurischia Sauropodomorpha Theropoda Ornithischia Dinosaurs were vertebrate animals that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for over 160 million years, first appearing approximately 230 million years ago. ... Discovery Channel is a property of Discovery Communications primarily packaged as a network entertainment brand distributed in virtually every pay-television market in the world. ... Dinosaur Planet is a novel by Anne McCaffrey Dinosaur Planet is the name of two planets in the Star Fox series, as well as a working title for the video game Star Fox Adventures Dinosaur Planet - Real Big Stories, an entertaining 2003 DVD release, animated by Meteor Studios Dinosaur Planet... Families unknown. ... Species  (type) Struthiosaurus (Latin struthio = ostritch + Greek sauros = lizard) is one of the smallest known and most primitive nodosaurid dinosaurs, from the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian-Maastrichtian) of Austria and Romania in Europe [1]. Although estimates of its length vary, it may have been as small as 7-8 feet... World map showing Europe Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiogeographic one. ... In zoology, Bergmanns Rule is a principle that correlates environmental temperature with body mass in warm-blooded animals. ...

• Siberian Tiger
• Polar Bear
• Emperor Penguin

Trinomial name Panthera tigris altaica Temminck, 1844 The Siberian Tiger (also known as the Amur, Korean, Manchurian, or North China Tiger) is the largest and most powerful subspecies of naturally occurring feline. ... Binomial name Ursus maritimus Phipps, 1774 The Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus), aka white bear aka northern bear aka sea bear, is a large bear native to the Arctic. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

See also

• Island gigantism
• Foster's rule
• Deep-sea gigantism

Island gigantism is a biological phenomenon by which the size of animals isolated on an island increases dramatically over generations. ... Fosters rule (also known as the island rule) is a principle in evolutionary biology stating that members of a species will get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment. ... In zoology, deep-sea gigantism, also known as abyssal gigantism, is the tendency for species of crustaceans and other invertebrates to display a larger size than their shallow-water counterparts. ...

External links

• Strange world of island species October 31, 2004 The Observer