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Description
It's here! Finally! After a week of studying the wildlife of the island of Crete during the Pleistocene I decided to try and make a size chart with its most representative species. Let's begin!

The Cretan giant mouse (genus Kritimys) is a lineage of giant murids that lived in Crete during the Early-Middle Pleistocene. Represented by three species in geological order, K. aff. kiridus, K. kiridus and K. catreus, the later being the largest, and the first being the smallest, still, it was already larger than a rat. Nothing much to say about its features, but thanks to their many remains the geological procedence of other fauna in the island could be accurately placed, these species are called the Kritimys fauna, while the Late Pleistocene ones are found along with the genus Mus (M. bateae and M. minotaurus).

The Cretan otter (Lutrogale cretensis) was a large otter that lived in Crete during the Late Pleistocene. Its more robust dentition indicates a more terrestrial way of living than any other otter known (also considering Crete has very few rivers), and it may have preyed on insects and birds rather than fish. There were enough remains to construct an almost full skeleton, revealing just a slightly bigger size compared to mainland otters, also an interesting fact, the size variation isn't as extreme as other species in the island because Foster's rule doesn't affect otters that much.

The Cretan giant owl (Athene cretensis) was a species of little owl that lived in Crete during the Late Pleistocene. It had an estimated height of at least 60cm and was probably flightless or partially flightless, a common adaptation in insular birds. It preyed upon the dwarf deer species and large mice that roamed the island, and disappeared once the first humans arrived to the island.

The Cretan dwarf deer (Candiacervus ropalophorus) is one of the no less 8 identified species of Cretan deer (genus Candiacervus) that evolved in the island and roamed it during the Late Pleistocene until the arrival of humans. The immense ammount of bone material (imagine a room full of bones) allowed to identify at least 5 different size groups, and the many antlers vary so much in shape and size that it has been truly a nightmare to come up with a conclusive classification. Certainly, the shape and size of an antler varies a lot between individuals due to environmental factors, so it is quite difficult to differentiate what makes a different species and what doesn't, not considering also possible ecomorphs. The different sizes (from the large C. major and C. dorothensis at 1.6m wither height, to the smaller C. rethymensis and C. cretensis to the smallerest C. ropalophorus shown in the graphic at 40cm wither height) indicate adaptation to different feeding niches. Alexandra van der Geer identified another three (jesus as if there weren't enough) species in 2018 (devosi, listeri, and reumeri) which are mostly about the size of C. cretensis. Anyway, after all this madness I wanna talk a bit about C. ropalophorus, certainly it's a small deer, but its striking feature isn't only its size, this guy has the shorter legs in proportion to the body of all deer, the legs were also way more robust than any other cervid, basically, this species evolved to fit the niche of mountain goats, and adapted to browse plants from the rocky outcrops of Crete.

The Cretan dwarf hippo or Creutzburg's hippo (Hippopotamus creutzburgi) is one of the many smol hippo species of the Mediterranean, and lived in Crete during the Early-Middle Pleistocene. It is quite special compared to the other hippos, because its remains were found in a cave at 1100m a.s.l and its limbs were rather different, being longer and with a shorter radius, this seems to indicate that, just like the dwarf deer, the Cretan hippo had adapted to dwelling the rocky mountains of the island and was less aquatic.

The Cretan dwarf mammoth (Mammuthus creticus) was found along a Kritimys kiridus jaw, so it lived in Crete during the Early Pleistocene. This guy holds the record of the smallest mammoth known, and it was certainly small at a height of 1.1m, no bigger than a baby African elephant. To reach such a small size, it must had been isolated for quite a long time. It was initially mistaken for a species of the genus Elephas, but that's for the next guy!

The Cretan elephant (Palaeoloxodon creutzburgi), also called Cretan dwarf elephant (mistakenly imo, because it was far from being dwarf, it was about 30% smaller than Palaeoloxodon antiquus) was the last proboscidean to live in Crete. One molar was found by a guy while hiking, and apparently other molars found indicate that other larger species, P. chaniensis, also lived in Crete about the same time. The fairly large size of this species was probably due to its recent arrival to the island, which means it didn't have much time to reduce in size as other species.

Honourable mentions of other animals in the island: Cretan marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata cretensis), Cretan mouse (Mus minotaurus).

With this my project for the Cretan fauna is finally over, I really hope you enjoy it as I did and makes you appreciate the incredible way life adapts to living in islands! I might make more size charts like this in the future.

References:
books.google.es/books/about/Ev…
users.uoa.gr/~geeraae/publicat…
users.uoa.gr/~glyras/eavp/guid…
Chenyu's (sinammonite) hippopotamus size chart
Victor Leshyk's dwarf mammoth artwork

Description
It's here! Finally! After a week of studying the wildlife of the island of Crete during the Pleistocene I decided to try and make a size chart with its most representative species. Let's begin!

The Cretan giant mouse (genus Kritimys) is a lineage of giant murids that lived in Crete during the Early-Middle Pleistocene. Represented by three species in geological order, K. aff. kiridus, K. kiridus and K. catreus, the later being the largest, and the first being the smallest, still, it was already larger than a rat. Nothing much to say about its features, but thanks to their many remains the geological procedence of other fauna in the island could be accurately placed, these species are called the Kritimys fauna, while the Late Pleistocene ones are found along with the genus Mus (M. bateae and M. minotaurus).

The Cretan otter (Lutrogale cretensis) was a large otter that lived in Crete during the Late Pleistocene. Its more robust dentition indicates a more terrestrial way of living than any other otter known (also considering Crete has very few rivers), and it may have preyed on insects and birds rather than fish. There were enough remains to construct an almost full skeleton, revealing just a slightly bigger size compared to mainland otters, also an interesting fact, the size variation isn't as extreme as other species in the island because Foster's rule doesn't affect otters that much.

The Cretan giant owl (Athene cretensis) was a species of little owl that lived in Crete during the Late Pleistocene. It had an estimated height of at least 60cm and was probably flightless or partially flightless, a common adaptation in insular birds. It preyed upon the dwarf deer species and large mice that roamed the island, and disappeared once the first humans arrived to the island.

The Cretan dwarf deer (Candiacervus ropalophorus) is one of the no less 8 identified species of Cretan deer (genus Candiacervus) that evolved in the island and roamed it during the Late Pleistocene until the arrival of humans. The immense ammount of bone material (imagine a room full of bones) allowed to identify at least 5 different size groups, and the many antlers vary so much in shape and size that it has been truly a nightmare to come up with a conclusive classification. Certainly, the shape and size of an antler varies a lot between individuals due to environmental factors, so it is quite difficult to differentiate what makes a different species and what doesn't, not considering also possible ecomorphs. The different sizes (from the large C. major and C. dorothensis at 1.6m wither height, to the smaller C. rethymensis and C. cretensis to the smallerest C. ropalophorus shown in the graphic at 40cm wither height) indicate adaptation to different feeding niches. Alexandra van der Geer identified another three (jesus as if there weren't enough) species in 2018 (devosi, listeri, and reumeri) which are mostly about the size of C. cretensis. Anyway, after all this madness I wanna talk a bit about C. ropalophorus, certainly it's a small deer, but its striking feature isn't only its size, this guy has the shorter legs in proportion to the body of all deer, the legs were also way more robust than any other cervid, basically, this species evolved to fit the niche of mountain goats, and adapted to browse plants from the rocky outcrops of Crete.

The Cretan dwarf hippo or Creutzburg's hippo (Hippopotamus creutzburgi) is one of the many smol hippo species of the Mediterranean, and lived in Crete during the Early-Middle Pleistocene. It is quite special compared to the other hippos, because its remains were found in a cave at 1100m a.s.l and its limbs were rather different, being longer and with a shorter radius, this seems to indicate that, just like the dwarf deer, the Cretan hippo had adapted to dwelling the rocky mountains of the island and was less aquatic.

The Cretan dwarf mammoth (Mammuthus creticus) was found along a Kritimys kiridus jaw, so it lived in Crete during the Early Pleistocene. This guy holds the record of the smallest mammoth known, and it was certainly small at a height of 1.1m, no bigger than a baby African elephant. To reach such a small size, it must had been isolated for quite a long time. It was initially mistaken for a species of the genus Elephas, but that's for the next guy!

The Cretan elephant (Palaeoloxodon creutzburgi), also called Cretan dwarf elephant (mistakenly imo, because it was far from being dwarf, it was about 30% smaller than Palaeoloxodon antiquus) was the last proboscidean to live in Crete. One molar was found by a guy while hiking, and apparently other molars found indicate that other larger species, P. chaniensis, also lived in Crete about the same time. The fairly large size of this species was probably due to its recent arrival to the island, which means it didn't have much time to reduce in size as other species.

Honourable mentions of other animals in the island: Cretan marginated tortoise (Testudo marginata cretensis), Cretan mouse (Mus minotaurus).

With this my project for the Cretan fauna is finally over, I really hope you enjoy it as I did and makes you appreciate the incredible way life adapts to living in islands! I might make more size charts like this in the future.

References:
books.google.es/books/about/Ev…
users.uoa.gr/~geeraae/publicat…
users.uoa.gr/~glyras/eavp/guid…
Chenyu's (sinammonite) hippopotamus size chart
Victor Leshyk's dwarf mammoth artwork