Pezosiren

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Pezosiren
Fossil range: Early Eocene
Conservation status
Fossil
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Sirenia
Family: Prorastomidae
Genus: Pezosiren
Domning, 2001
Species: P. portelli
Binomial name
Pezosiren portelli
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.

[edit] 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

[edit] See also

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