Island gigantism is a biological phenomenon, a phenomenon in which the size of individual animal species living on an isolated island increases rapidly with each subsequent generation [1] .
Content
Examples
Mammals
Many rodents grow larger on the islands, while predators , artiodactyls and proboscis usually become smaller. However, the largest ruminant species from the genus Hoplitomeryx also exhibit island gigantism, since the hypothetical ancestors of this genus were small ungulates [2] .
Birds
The largest birds that ever existed on Earth were inhabitants of the islands: epiornis in Madagascar and moa in New Zealand , which reached three meters in height and weighed up to 250 kg. Gigantism in these flightless birds is the result of mutations leading to overdevelopment of the pituitary gland .
Plants
Island gigantism is found not only among animals, but also among plants. On Sakhalin , a Sakhalin mountaineer ( Polygonum sachalinense ) grows; many other Sakhalin plants are also gigantic. Some species of shrubs and grasses on the islands are not inferior in size to small trees, for example, plantain tree-like ( Plantago arborescens ) from the Canary Islands .
See also
- Deep sea gigantism
- Cop law
- Island dwarfism
Notes
- ↑ Raia, P .; Meiri, S., The island rule in large mammals: paleontology meets ecology (English) // Evolution : journal. - 2006 .-- August ( vol. 60 , no. 8 ). - P. 1731-1742 . - DOI : 10.1111 / j.0014-3820.2006.tb00516.x .
- ↑ Mazza, Rossi & Agostini, 2015 , pp. 274-275.
Literature
- Mazza, PPA, Rossi, MA, & Agostini, S. Hoplitomerycidae (Late Miocene, Italy), an Example of Giantism in Insular Ruminants // Journal of Mammalian Evolution. - 2015. - Vol. 22, No. 2. - P. 271-277. - DOI : 10.1007 / s10914-014-9277-2 .
- [one]