This is not a brand new article, but it does deal with a topic that's of evergreen interest. Well to me at least. There's a phenomenon known as island dwarfism, whereby species that live for long enough on an island can become greatly smaller in size. The discovery of homo floresiensis fossils early in this century reminded people of that. Yet paradoxically animals like rats and rabbits can become much bigger on an island than they do on the mainland. The natural world offers no end of mysteries and oddities.
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Hah! That top picture reminded me of Sherlock Holmes's Giant Rat of Sumatra - a story for which the world is not yet prepared.
Island dwarfism is a fascinating topic and very real in its time. I remember the homo floresiensis caused quite a stir among paleoarcheologists who argued for years about whether they were a dwarfed segment of another hominid race or one that had evolved separately. I'm not sure if that's been resolved or not.
Of course our perennial favorite idea of islanding was that giant creatures like King Kong still lived in some mysterious jungle - never mind the stries about living dinosaurs in South America. I think we need mysteries to keep life interesting in the modern world.
The Firesign Theater based that on an actual side comment in a Doyle-written Holmes story ("Adventure of the Sussex Vampire"). They must have been fans.
To some degree the lines between one species and another are set somewhat arbitrarily, so there's a legitimate question. But at the very least it was a stable physical trait and not just a mutation.
King Kong is a great yarn. Fantastical too, and certainly far-fetched. While some animals do get larger on islands, anything that size is going to need resources on a scale you can only find on the mainland.
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