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Dugong dugon is the only extant species of the family Dugongidae, and one of only four extant species of the Sirenia order, the others forming the manatee family. [13] It was first classified by Müller in 1776 as Trichechus dugon, [14] a member of the manatee genus previously defined by Linnaeus. [15]
Dugongs generally gather in groups of less than a dozen individuals for one to two days. Since they congregate in turbid waters, little is known about their reproductive behavior. The males are often seen with scars, and the tusks on dugongs grow in first for males, suggesting they are important in lekking.
It is an early member of the family Dugongidae, which includes the extant dugong. Fossils have been found from Egypt, India, and Madagascar. Eotheroides was first described by Richard Owen in 1875 under the name Eotherium, which was replaced by the current name in 1899.
The first members of ... The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000-to-110,000-year-old ... A wide variety of seagrass has been found in dugong ...
The fossil genus Dusisiren is regarded as the sister taxon of Hydrodamalis: together, the two genera form the dugong subfamily Hydrodamalinae. [1] They were the largest member of the order Sirenia, whose only extant members are the dugong (Dugong dugon) and the manatees (Trichechus spp.). [2]
Metaxytherium is an extinct genus of dugong that lived from the Oligocene until the end of the Pliocene. Fossil remains have been found in Africa , Europe , North America and South America . Generally marine seagrass specialists, they inhabited the warm and shallow waters of the Paratethys , Mediterranean , Caribbean Sea and Pacific coastline.
The manatee's tail is paddle-shaped, and is the clearest visible difference between manatees and dugongs; a dugong tail is fluked, similar in shape to that of a whale. The manatee is unusual among mammals in having just six cervical vertebrae, [11] a number that may be due to mutations in the homeotic genes. [12]
The focal point of her research has been the biology of dugongs, with particular foci in the areas of population ecology, history, reproduction, diet, and movements. [1] She is the Dean of Graduate Research Studies and the Professor of Environmental Science at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and also a Distinguished Professor in ...