The BIZARRE Animals Of The Balearic Islands

The Balearic Sea off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula holds the eastern island group Gymnesians, featuring Menorca and Mallorca. Today they are tourism hotspots with the islands of this group collectively bringing in 15 million international tourists during 2022. I was lucky enough to visit the island of Menorca without any knowledge of its prehistoric animals.

As we’ve already seen in this series, Mediterranean islands were once a host to mini megafauna such as the Cretan Dwarf hippo and dwarf prehistoric elephants found in the Miocene and Late Pleistocene.

Today, most endemic species to these islands are gone. The most recent elephants died out about 12,000 years ago, spawning legends of cyclops, while the many wolves of Sicily have now also disappeared, the Mediterranean Monk Seals are slowly recovering.

The immense damage done to the Mediterranean can be illustrated in one unique case study of the earlier mentioned Mallorca and Menorca, so today we will go into the Island Giants that roamed the fertile valleys and dramatic cliffs. From the front facing Myotragus to the mega rabbit Nurulagus Rex.

Thumbnail By Thomath:    / @thomath-yl7fu  

0:00 Intro
2:33 Nuralagus Rex
4:30 Hypnomys
5:43 Nesiotites
6:30 Myotragus

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#LostWorld #Mallorca #paleontology #zoology