Nanosiren

Nanosiren garciae Temporal range: Miocene PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Sirenia
Family:	Dugongidae
Subfamily:	Dugonginae
Genus:	Nanosiren Domning, 2001
Species:	N. garciae
Binomial name
Nanosiren garciae Domning, 2001

Nanosiren garciae is an extinct sirenian mammal, a pigmy, tusked sea cow of the family Dugongidae, genus Nanosiren, living in warm shallow seas approximately 11.610—3.6 Ma during the Miocene, existing approximately 8.01 million years.^[1] It is evolutionarily related to modern species of manatees and dugongs.

Taxonomy

Nanosiren garciae was named by Domning and Aguilera (2008). Its name was attributed to Domning, not Domning and Aguilera. Its type is Nanosiren garciae. It was assigned to Dugonginae by Domning and Aguilera (2008).

Description

Sirenians, also called sea cows, are an almost extinct group of aquatic, herbivorous mammals. Sirenians diverged from related ungulate (hooved) mammals early in the Paleogene.^[2] Currently, there are four existing sirenian species - three manatee species and one dugong species. All are gentle herbivores inhabiting coasts and rivers. Though completely aquatic, they are only distantly related to cetaceans and pinnipeds. Their closest living relatives are modern elephants.

Nanosiren garciae, an extinct sirenian, was classified and named in 2008 based on fossils uncovered from the Bone Valley Formation near Tampa, Florida.^[3] It is the smallest known post-Eocene sirenian, with body lengths of about 2 meters and weighing about 150 kg. Newborn nanosirens may have weighed only 6.8 kg. Its small size gave rise to the naming of its genus as Nanosiren, from the Greek for a "dwarf siren". These mammals were of shallow draft and possessed small, conical tusks, suggesting they foraged in shallower waters than their dugong relatives. Nanosirens likely fed on smaller seagrasses near shorelines.^[4] They thrived approximately 5 million years ago during the Hemphillian age.

The species was described and named by Daryl P. Domning of Howard University and Orangel A. Aguilera of the Universidad Nacional Experimental Francisco de Miranda, Venezuela in 2008.^[5] The name was chosen to commemorate famed Florida paleontologist Frank A. Garcia, who uncovered many fossil samples of the extinct mammal from the Leisey Shell Pit in Central Florida.

Notes

1. ^ Daryl P. Domning and Orangel A. Aguilera, Fossil Sirenia of the West Atlantic and Caribbean Region, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28(2):479-500. 2008
2. ^ The Fossil Vertebrates of Florida, ed. Richard C. Hulbert, Jr., University Press of Florida, 2001, p.322
3. ^ Domning & Aguilera
4. ^ Id.
5. ^ Id.

See also

List of Extinct Mammals

Related species

• Dugong

• Steller's sea cow

• Manatee