Leithia is an extinct genus of giant dormice from the Pleistocene of the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Sicily. It is considered an example of island gigantism. Leithia melitensis is the largest known species of dormouse, living or extinct, being twice the size of any other known species.

An international team of paleontologists from the UK, Italy and Switzerland has created the first digital reconstruction of the skull of Leithia melitensis, an extinct gigantic dormouse that lived on Malta and Sicily around two million years ago.

2020年7月9日 · An international team of paleontologists from the UK, Italy and Switzerland has created the first digital reconstruction of the skull of Leithia melitensis, an extinct gigantic dormouse that lived on Malta and Sicily around two million years ago.

Large and small mammals, amphibians and reptiles from a new late Pleistocene fissure filling deposit of the Hyblean Plateau (South Eastern Sicily). Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana 36 (1-2): 97-122. << Back to the Rodents database.

Leithia melitensis, the Maltese giant dormouse, was descended from garden dormice, but thanks to the lack of large land predators on Siculo-Malta it was able to evolve a much much larger body size – about 60-70cm long (2′-2’4″), almost the size of a cat.

2020年11月4日 · Leithia melitensis is the largest and most robust dormouse. Hypnomys and Leithia show similar morphological modifications, although these are often more pronounced within Leithia [ 32 ]. This also explains the relatively large Procrustes distances seen in the PSvAS model for this species (cranium 0.13; mandible 0.12).

2003年1月1日 · The excavations have brought to light a cavity, filled with red residual soil sediments containing several skeletal parts of the pigmy elephant Elephas falconeri (Busk, 1867) and giant dormouse...

Leithia melitensis, the subject of this 59 study, is another insular Mediterranean species from the Plio-Pleistocene that has undergone 60 a significant shift in body size.

2020年7月9日 · In a new study, the student from Hull York Medical School, has digitally pieced together fossilised fragments from five giant dormouse skulls to reconstruct the first known complete skull of the...

2020年7月9日 · Virtual Cranial Reconstruction of the Endemic Gigantic Dormouse Leithia melitensis (Rodentia, Gliridae) from Poggio Schinaldo, Sicily is published in Open Quaternary. The study was supported by the University of York, Hull York Medical School and the European Federation of Experimental Morphology.