FIGURE 1. Location map of the island of Crete and geographical position and views of Liko, Gerani and Bate caves.
FIGURE 2. Skeletons and postcranial elements of Cretan deer (a) two composite mounts of dwarf Candiacervus species (AMPG) (b) metatarsals of the six different size classes of the Cretan deer in dorsal view. Roman numbers indicate the size classes of de Vos (1979). Size class I: C. ropalophorus; size class II: C. devosi, C. listeri, and C. reumeri; size class III: C. cretensis; size class IV: C. rethymnensis; size class V: C. dorothensis; size class VI: C. major. Note that size class II includes three species, which cannot be distinguished on postcranial elements alone. AMPG (sizes I-IV) and MPUR (sizes V-VI).
FIGURE 3. Distribution of the calculated body sizes for each postcranial element. The body mass bins are arranged in 5 kg increments.
FIGURE 4. Diversification of cervid body mass across evolutionary time. The phenogram is a projection of the cervid tree into a space defined by body mass and time. The Candiacervus body masses are based on postcranial elements. Although the Cretan deer lineage diversified for a relatively short time, it achieved a significant size variation. Animal silhouettes from Phylopic.org.
FIGURE 5. Diversity of body size in Cervidae.
FIGURE 6. Body masses of living and fossil deer. The bars represent the body mass of each species. Similar shades of green unify congeneric taxa. Asterisks indicate insular taxa. The Candiacervus body masses are based on postcranial elements. The body masses are plotted along the phylogenetic tree of Cervidae (adapted from Carotenuto et al., 2015). Animal silhouettes from Phylopic.org.
