Pezosiren

Taxobox
name = "Pezosiren"
status = fossil
fossil_range = Early Eocene
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Sirenia
familia = Prorastomidae
genus = "Pezosiren"
genus_authority = Domning, 2001
species = "P. portelli"
binomial = "Pezosiren portelli"
binomial_authority = Domning, 2001

"Pezosiren portelli" is the name given to what is thought to be an early sirenian represented by a Jamaican fossil skeleton, described in 2001 by Daryl Domning, a marine mammal paleontologist at Howard University in Washington, DC. It is believed to have lived 50 million years ago, perhaps with a hippopotamus-like amphibious lifestyle.

It had the skull and basic body shared by most modern sirenians, like manatees and dugongs, but also had four normal limbs, still adapted for walking on land.

References

* Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald R. Prothero and Carl Buell
* After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals (Life of the Past) by Donald R. Prothero
* Marine Mammals: Evolutionary Biology by Annalisa Berta, James L. Sumich, and Kit M. Kovacs
* Vertebrate Palaeontology by Michael J. Benton
* The Beginning of the Age of Mammals by Kenneth D. Rose
* The Origin and Evolution of Mammals (Oxford Biology) by T. S. Kemp
* Horns, Tusks, and Flippers: The Evolution of Hoofed Mammals by Donald R. Prothero and Robert M. Schoch
* The Rise of Placental Mammals: Origins and Relationships of the Major Extant Clades by Kenneth D. Rose and J. David Archibald

ee also

* Evolution of sirenians
* Prorastomus