[] A newly discovered miniature sea cow reveals a 21-million-year legacy of seagrass engineers in the Arabian Gulf. The Fossils from Qatar have revealed a small, newly identified sea cow species that lived in the Arabian Gulf more than 20 million years ago.
The site contains the densest known collection of fossil sea cow bones, showing that these animals once thrived in rich seagrass meadows. Their ecological role mirrors that of modern dugongs, which still reshape the Gulf’s seafloor as they graze. The findings may help researchers understand how seagrass ecosystems respond to long-term environmental change... []
[] The findings, published December 10 in the journal PeerJ, come from a partnership between scientists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and Qatar Museums.
The team also identified a previously unknown species of ancient sea cow that was much smaller than modern dugongs.
''' We discovered a distant relative of dugongs in rocks less than 10 miles away from a bay with seagrass meadows that make up their prime habitat today ''' : said Nicholas Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the National Museum of Natural History and a lead author of the study.
''' This part of the world has been prime sea cow habitat for the past 21 million years -- it's just that the sea cow role has been occupied by different species over time. ''' []