Sea Cow
Related Category: Vertebrate Zoology
see sirenian.
More on Sea Cow
Sirenian - (sr´nn) or sea cow, name for a large aquatic mammal of the order Sirenia.
Steller's sea cows were large herbivores that had a seal-like appearance with a tail which resembled that of a whale.
They are also known as sea cows. Members of this order live their entire lives in the water and live primarily on vegetation. They are fairly large, seal-like creatures with a streamlined shape. They are nearly hairless and have not eyelids.
Sea cows: Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus Trichechus) are large aquatic mammals sometimes known as sea cows. The Trichechidae differ from the Dugongidae in the shape of the skull and the shape of the tail.
Manatees or sea cows (order Sirenia) are large aquatic mammals that live in warm coastal waters and, during the winter, inland spring-fed rivers. The forelimbs are flippers; there are no hindlimbs.
Sometimes called a sea cow, the placid manatee lives in shallow coastal waters and rivers.
Photograph by Brian J. Skerry
Map ...
A small African mammal which looks like a rodent, but is actually a member of the Afrotheria - related to elephants, sea cows, tenrecs, elephant shrews and the aardvark.
Cape pangolin ...
Relationship of aardvark to elephants, hyraxes and sea cows from alpha-crystallin sequences. Nature 292: 538-540.
^ DeJong,W.W., J.A.M. Leunissen, and G.J. Wistow. 1993.
Sea Cows
Quiz
Manatees are aquatic mammals that are called sea cows (named this by Georg Wilhelm Steller, because they taste like beef).
The manatee is often referred to as the sea cow.
The manatee has no incisors. It only has molars, which are used for grinding vegetation.
Along with these elephant-shrews, many of the other Afrotherians are vulnerable or endangered, including all the elephants and sea cows, half of the hyraxes, and several golden-moles and tenrecs.
Manatees, sometimes nicknamed 'sea cows,' are gentle marine mammals that typically swim very slowly and eat large amounts of aquatic plants.
Suiting the nickname of "sea cow," manatees continuously graze on underwater plants, taking in as much as 5 to 10 percent of their body weight and eating six to eight hours a day. They are herbivores, eating only plant material.
The large flat nails of elephants, hyraxes, and sea cows - collectively called the "paenungulates" ("almost ungulates") - were thought to represent an evolutionary intermediate between traditional claw-like nails and true hooves.
Also known as a "sea cow," manatees usually spend up to eight hours a day grazing on seagrasses and other aquatic plants. A manatee can consume up to 10 percent of its body weight in aquatic vegetation daily.
West Indian manatees, Trichechus manatus (Linnaeus, 1758), aka American, Antillean, Caribbean, North American or Florida manatee and the sea cow, are large, gray-brown aquatic mammals with bodies that taper to a large flat, paddle-shaped tail.
The Saltwater Cow: The manatee, often called the sea cow, is the only exclusively herbivorous marine mammal.
Hyraxes are considered a close relative of the elephant because of similarities with the primitive Eocene ungulates from which elephants and sea cows are thought to have developed.
Manatees are large aquatic animals also known as Sea Cows.
Manatee Physical Characteristics
Adult West Indian manatees and West African manatees average about 10 feet. (3 metres) in length.
Dugongs are also known as 'sea cows' because they feed on sea grass and the roots of aquatic plants in sheltered coastal waters. Dugongs have a fluked tail that enables them to swim.
Order Sirenia (dugongs, manatees, and sea cows)
Order Tubulidentata (aardvark)
Euarchontoglires (Euarchontoglirean mammals) ...
Also known as:
Caribbean Manatee, Sea Cow, Manati, Vaca Marina
Sexual Dimorphism:
Females are larger than males.
Other Names
Caribbean Manatee, Sea Cow
Size
Length 2.8m - 3.5m. Weight 500kg - 1650kg.
Many of the species that he introduced to European science are also dead (Steller's Sea Cow), threatened (Steller's Sea Lion, Steller's Eider), or have never been seen again (Steller's Sea Ape, ...
This is true to a certain extent, but misleading since the relationship stems from a remote ancestor common to hyraxes, sea cows (dugongs and manatees) and elephants.
They are closely related to the manatee and to the extinct Stellar's sea cow. They are endangered through boating collisions and habitat destruction.
(Other Names: Caribbean Manatee, Lamantin d'Amérique du Nord, Lamantin des Antilles, Lamantin des Caraïbes, Lamantine, Lamantino Norteamericana, Manatí, Manatí Norteamericano, North American Manatee, Peixe-boi, Peixe-Boi-Marinho, Sea Cow, Sekoe, ...
latirostris, the Florida manatee, and T.m. manatus, the Antillean manatee. The order Sirenia has one other living species, the dugong. A fifth species, Steller's sea cow, was hunted to extinction by 1768.
genus (e.g., any of the 8 species of pangolin in genus Manis) but I did expand the concept to include "any sirenid" as a single pick: these are the 3 species of manatee plus the South Pacific dugong. Together this might be considered the "sea cow" ...
 See also: Manatee, Dugong, Siren, Elephant, Hyrax
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