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M. Masseti: Homogenisation and the loss of biodiversity of mammals of the Mediterranean islands 181
Lamine Cheniti 1988, Vigne and Callou 1996). Moreover,
arguing against the formerly supposed endemism of the
Cretan and the Cypriot spiny mice is the absence of any
Pleistocene fossil of the genus recorded so far from
either of these islands, whereas genetic researches dem-
onstrate the vicinity of the spiny mice to the populations
of the Acomys cahirinus-dimidiadus group, distributed in
south-western Asia (Machola´ n et al. 1995, Baroˆ me et al. struct for the Tilos exemplar, it also being adult, sym-
1998, 2001, Masseti 1998, 2003a).
Modern research emphasises the susceptibility of bats
to geographical barriers, even a narrow tract of sea
(Azzaroli Puccetti and Zava 1988, de Naurois 1994, Cas-
tella et al. 2000). Thus, only a few species of the order
Chiroptera are today recognised as endemic to the insu-
lar complexes between the Mediterranean Sea and the
Atlantic Ocean. As far as is presently known, the Sardi-
nian long-eared bat, Plecotus sardus Mucedda, Kiefer,
Pidinchedda and Veith 2002 (Kiefer and Veith 2001, Kie-
fer et al. 2002, Mucedda et al. 2002), is the only endemic
bat recognised for the Mediterranean islands. It is also
the only extant mammalian species endemic to Sardinia
and the sole endemic bat of Italy.
The island of Tilos, in the Eastern Aegean Sea:
a case study
Further studies are required for a better understanding of
the taxonomic status of the lesser white-toothed shrew,
Crocidura suaveolens Pallas 1811, from the small island
of Tilos in the Dodecanese (Eastern Aegean Sea,
Greece). Although this island lies only a few marine miles
off the western Anatolian coast, in the late Quaternary its remains have been found associated with the Tilos ele-
native mammalian fauna was not characterised by con-
tinental taxa, but differed considerably from contempo-
rary mainland wildlife. It was dominated by endemic
dwarf elephants, only recently specifically described as
Elephas tiliensis by Theodorou et al. (2007b) (Figure 16).
According to detailed comparisons by Theodorou (1983,
1986), this elephant also never arrived at the larger
dimensions of some of its bigger endemic relatives of
Figure 16 The geographical location of the island of Tilos, only a few marine miles off the western coast of Turkey, in the Eastern
Aegean Sea (Greece).
Sicily and Crete. The morphology of the new species
points to a population with numerous changes concern-
ing the postcranial material. It could be interesting to note
that the height at the withers of the adult pygmy African
elephants photographed by Bo¨ hme and Eisentraut (1990)
in the north of the People’s Republic of Congo is almost
the same as that which it has been possible to recon-
bolically illustrated in Figure 17 (cf. Masseti 2003a,
Masseti and Sara` 2003). As we have already seen, how-
ever, the supposed ancestor of the dwarf proboscidean
of Tilos was not Loxodonta africana or a taxonomically
related form, but the straight-tusked elephant.
The age of the deposits of the cave of Charkadio, on
Tilos, where the elephants were discovered ranges from
the very late Pleistocene to the Holocene, some of their
osteological remains being attributed to very recent
times, between 7.090"680 and 4.390"600 BP (Bach-
mayer and Symeonidis 1975, Bachmayer et al. 1976).
These dates originate from a different place in the cave
of Charkadio, in inland Tilos, and are supposed to prove
the simultaneous existence of the elephants and post-
Palaeolithic man (Bachmayer et al. 1984). Furthermore, if
such dating is reliable, we can assume that this taxon
survived at least up to the beginning of the Aegean
Bronze Age (Masseti 2001). According to Theodorou et
al. (2007b), Elephas tiliensis is the last Mediterranean and
European endemic elephant.
Except for one bat, the lesser mouse-eared bat, Myotis
blythii Tomes 1857, so far no other micromammal
phants, the stratigraphy of which also yielded Testudo
marginata Schoeppf 1795, and Ursus arctos L. 1758, the
latter presumed to be a hunter trophy (Bachmayer et al.
1976, Caloi et al. 1986, Kotsakis 1990). Nonetheless,
other as yet unknown representatives of the limited
endemic mammalian fauna of Tilos may have survived
much longer than on other Mediterranean islands, pos-
sibly thanks to the shelter afforded by the natural mor-
phology of the island, particularly inhospitable and
unsuitable for human settlement. On the basis of such a