Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Pygmy Sea Cow Discovered in Madagascar

  • 13-12-2009 7:21pm
    #1
    Galvasean
    Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭


    Madagascar has always been renouned for it's unique and often bizarre wildlife. Today creatures are found there that exist nowhere else on Earth. It appears that things weren't that much different 40 million years ago. The discovery of Eotheroides lambondrano, a small relative of the modern dugong, sheds some light on this poorly represented spot of history.
    Known from a roughly 40-million-year-old skull and a few ribs, the new species has been named Eotheroides lambondrano, after the Malagasy word for dugong, which translates to "water bushpig." At about seven feet (two meters) long, the ancient pygmy sea cow was smaller than the modern dugong, which ranges from about 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 meters) in length.
    Full article here.
    091212-pygmy-sea-cow_big.jpg
    Image by Karen Samonds
    Tagged:


Comments

  • #2
    marco_polo
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭marco_polo


    Mmm, yet another transitional fossil that was predicted by both molecular studies and anotomical analysis.

    As far as I know the only other near complete specimen discovered thus far (in 2001) on this evolutionary pathway is Pezosiren portelli , dating from about 50 million years ago. At a similar stage in many respects to Ambulocetus the 'walking whale'.

    pezosiren.jpg


Advertisement