Fauna of Atlantis

The Fauna of Atlantis, as described by Plato, has done little to pinpoint its location and is clearly a subject for further investigation.  However, pinpointing is the wrong word since Atlantis, as I see it, stretched from North Africa as far north as central Italy, so there is probably a wide geographical spread to the fauna noted by Plato.

In Critias, he refers to ‘flocks’ (111c) implying sheep and/or goats; bees (111c), elephants (114e); horses (117b); bulls (119d). He also mentions sable clothing (120b) but these were possibly imported.

The most problematic animal is the elephant. Elephants, mammoths, mastodons and the various insular dwarf-elephant species were distinct groups; any attempt to identify Plato’s elephant must take account of the relevant date and geographical setting. The remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the islands of the Mediterranean from Sardinia to Cyprus, where they lived during the Pleistocene.

Pygmy elephant is the term applied to some species found today in parts of Asia and Africa. However, ‘pygmy’ or ‘dwarf’ elephants, then or now, could hardly be described as “largest and most voracious” of animals (Critias 115a).

However, there is general acceptance that the North African Elephant inhabited the Atlas Mountains until it became extinct in Roman times^(b)(e). Atlantis sceptic, Ronald H. Fritze acknowledges^[709.25] the existence of elephants in North Africa until the Romans.

The species of elephant used by Hannibal has been a source of debate for years^(c). The Numidians of North Africa (202 BC–46 BC) also used local elephants in warfare ^(d). It would seem to me that the North African Elephant, rather than the Asian or African species, would have been more suited to the trek across the Alps. Needless to say the Atlas Mountains were part of the Atlantean sphere of influence (Timaeus 25a-b).

Eckart Kahlhofer believes that the elephants referred to by Plato were in fact deer, claiming that a scribal error resulted in the Greek word elaphos (deer) being transcribed as elephas (elephant).

Hyde Clarke proposed that Plato’s elephants, were in fact tapirs in an effort to bolster his Hispaniola location for Atlantis. Gene Matlock ‘borrowed’ this idea to suit his Mexican Atlantis. Tapirs are only found in S.E. Asia as well as Central and South America. Apart from that, Plato described his elephants as ‘the largest and most voracious’ (Crit. 114e & 115a), which would clearly exclude tapirs or deer.

R. Cedric Leonard has written an interesting paper^(a) on the early domestication of animals and its possible connection with Atlantis.

*^(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20161210225952/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Taming.html

^(b) https://interesting-africa-facts.com/Africa-Landforms/Atlas-Mountains-Facts.html

^(c) https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/18/science/the-mystery-of-hannibal-s-elephants.html

^(d) https://nabataea.net/elephants.html

^(e) 5 Animals That Once Roamed Morocco but No Longer Exist (archive.org)