Dwarf elephants are prehistoric members of the order Proboscidea which, through the process of allopatric speciation on islands, evolved much smaller body sizes (around 1.5-2.3 metres) in comparison with their immediate ancestors. Fossil remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades Islands and the Dodecanese Islands. Mediterranean dwarf elephants have generally been considered as members of the genus Palaeoloxodon, derived from the continental straight-tusked elephant, Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus. It has been suggested by the palaeontologist Othenio Abel in 1914 that the finding of skeletons of such elephants sparked the idea that they belonged to giant cyclopses, because the center nasal opening was thought to be a cyclopic eye socket.
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