Was the dwarfed Palaeoloxodon from Favignana Island the last endemic Pleistocene elephant from the western Mediterranean islands?

This paper re-apprises the scant elephant remains belonging to a dwarfPalaeoloxodonof uncertain taxonomy collected during the 1980s from a cave on Favignana Island (Aegadian Archipelago, western Sicily). The elephant was recently(14)C-dated to the Last Glacial Maximum (20,350-19,840 cal. BP), indicating that the Favignana elephant is likely the most recent insular endemicPalaeoloxodonspecies thus far reported from the Western Mediterranean. Dimensionally the remains are smaller than the late Middle-Late PleistoceneP. ex gr.P. mnaidriensisfrom Puntali Cave (Palermo), and similar in size to theP. ex gr.P. mnaidriensisindividual from San Teodoro Cave (Messina) post-dating a flowstone U-Th dated to ca. 32 ka. Accordingly, the possibility that relict populations ofPalaeoloxodonpersisted on Sicily longer than previously believed remains an intriguing possibility. None the less, the available data do not clearly indicate whether or not the small dimensions and recent age of the Favignana elephant may reflect a Late Pleistocene colonisation of Favignana Island by smallP. ex gr.P.mnaidriensis. Our palaeogeographic reconstruction of the Aegadian Islands does however demonstrate that Favignana was connected to Sicily during most of the Late Pleistocene, allowing elephants to disperse freely between Sicily and Favignana during the Last Glacial (MIS 4-MIS2).