* Astronomy

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: Cyclops


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Dwarf mammoth
Permalink  
 


  Mini mammoth once roamed Crete

Scientists can now add a 'dwarf mammoth' to the list of biological oxymorons that includes the jumbo shrimp and pygmy whale. Studies of fossils discovered last year on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea reveal that an extinct species once thought to be a diminutive elephant was actually the smallest mammoth known to have existed - which, as an adult, stood no taller than a modern newborn elephant.
Read more



__________________


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Cyclops
Permalink  
 


A cyclops, in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead. The name is widely thought to mean "circle-eyed".
Another possible origin for the Cyclops legend, advanced by the palaeontologist Othenio Abel in 1914, is the prehistoric dwarf elephant skulls - about twice the size of a human skull - that may have been found by the Greeks on Cyprus, Crete, Malta and Sicily. Abel suggested that the large, central nasal cavity (for the trunk) in the skull might have been interpreted as a large single eye-socket. Given the inexperience of the locals with living elephants, they were unlikely to recognise the skull for what it actually was.

Read more 



__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.



Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse
Powered by ActiveBoard