Mucking about with the fossil record

I had a dream this morning where I was walking in Central Park and passed a lady who was walking one of those new little elephants; you know the ones, they're about ten inches high and very cute. I believe they come in standard African and Indian varieties or you can get a little Wooly Mammoth. Hers had its trunk up in the air and was trumpeting so loudly that it woke me up.

Now you may not be aware of the existence of these little fellows for the simple reason that they probably don't really exist, beyond the fevered landscape of my dreams anyway, but I have dreamed about them three times in the last week or so. This morning I was thinking that when we do invent these little fellows it's going to play holy hell with the fossil records. Where are the intermediate species? How do we go from ten feet tall to ten inches tall?

I'm also not entirely convinced that little elephants make good pets. The big ones are meant to walk miles each day and develop some pretty nasty bone and joint ailments when they're confined to small spaces. If you make them one twelfth the size will they also only need one twelfth the exercise? Will walking them twice a day and letting them stomp all over your apartment be good enough? I just don't know. I think we need to think about this more before we let them escape from my head into the world.