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Sirenia

 
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Not to be confused with order Sirenidae (aquatic salamanders)
For the Gothic metal band, see Sirenia (band)
Sirenia (band)

Sirenia is a gothic metal band from Stavanger, Norway which incorporates a mixture of gothic metal and symphonic metal, as well as extreme metal and death metal elements....


Sirenia is an order
Order (biology)

In Biological classification used in biology, the order is a taxonomic rank between class and family . The superorder is a rank between class and order....
 of fully aquatic, herbivorous
Herbivore

Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism, known as an herbivore, heterotrophs principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
 mammals that inhabit rivers, estuaries, coastal marine waters, swamps, and marine wetlands. The order evolved during the Eocene epoch, more than 50 million years ago. Sirenians, including manatee
Manatee

Manatees are large, fully aquatic marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. The name manat? comes from the Ta?no, a pre-Columbian people of the Caribbean, meaning "breast"....
s and the Dugong
Dugong

The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's Sea Cow , was hunted to extinction in the 18th century....
, have major aquatic adaptation
Aquatic adaptation

Several animal groups have undergone aquatic adaptation, going from being purely terrestrial animals to living at least part of the time in water....
s: forelimbs have modified into arms used for steering, the tail has modified into a paddle used for propulsion, and the hind limbs (legs) are but two small remnant bones floating deep in the muscle.






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Not to be confused with order Sirenidae (aquatic salamanders)
For the Gothic metal band, see Sirenia (band)
Sirenia (band)

Sirenia is a gothic metal band from Stavanger, Norway which incorporates a mixture of gothic metal and symphonic metal, as well as extreme metal and death metal elements....


Sirenia is an order
Order (biology)

In Biological classification used in biology, the order is a taxonomic rank between class and family . The superorder is a rank between class and order....
 of fully aquatic, herbivorous
Herbivore

Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism, known as an herbivore, heterotrophs principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
 mammals that inhabit rivers, estuaries, coastal marine waters, swamps, and marine wetlands. The order evolved during the Eocene epoch, more than 50 million years ago. Sirenians, including manatee
Manatee

Manatees are large, fully aquatic marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. The name manat? comes from the Ta?no, a pre-Columbian people of the Caribbean, meaning "breast"....
s and the Dugong
Dugong

The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's Sea Cow , was hunted to extinction in the 18th century....
, have major aquatic adaptation
Aquatic adaptation

Several animal groups have undergone aquatic adaptation, going from being purely terrestrial animals to living at least part of the time in water....
s: forelimbs have modified into arms used for steering, the tail has modified into a paddle used for propulsion, and the hind limbs (legs) are but two small remnant bones floating deep in the muscle. They appear fat, but are fusiform
Fusiform

Fusiform means having a spindle-like shape that is wide in the middle and tapers at both ends.* Aneurysms can be classified as saccular or fusiform...
, hydrodynamic, and highly muscular. Their skulls are highly modified for taking breaths of air at the water's surface and dentition
Dentition

Dentition is the tooth development of teeth and their arrangement in the mouth.All mammals except the monotremes, the xenarthrans, the pangolins, and the cetaceans have up to four distinct types of teeth, with a maximum number for each....
 is greatly reduced. The skeletal bones of both the manatee and dugong are very dense which helps to neutralize the buoyancy of their blubber. The manatee appears to have an almost unlimited ability to produce new teeth as the anterior teeth wear down. They have only two teat
Teat

Teat is an alternative word for the nipple of a mammary gland, in humans referred to as a breast, from which milk is discharged. Similarly, in Cattles, goats, etc., teats are the projections from the udder through which milk is discharged....
s, located under their forelimbs, similar to elephant
Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals of the order Proboscidea and the family Elephantidae. There are three living species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant ....
s. The elephant
Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals of the order Proboscidea and the family Elephantidae. There are three living species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant ....
s are thought as the closest living relative of the sirenians.

The three manatee species (family Trichechidae) and the Dugong (family Dugongidae) are endangered species. All four living species are vulnerable to extinction from habitat loss and other negative impacts related to human population growth and coastal development. Already the Steller's Sea Cow
Steller's Sea Cow

Steller's sea cow is an extinct, large sirenian mammal formerly found near the Asiatic coast of the Bering Sea. It was discovered in the Commander Islands in 1741 by the German naturalist Georg Steller, who was traveling with the explorer Vitus Bering....
 has been hunted into extinction by humans. Manatees and the Dugong are the only marine mammals classified as herbivore
Herbivore

Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism, known as an herbivore, heterotrophs principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
s. Unlike the other marine mammals (dolphin
Dolphin

File:Bottlenose_Dolphin_KSC04pd0178.jpgDolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in seventeen genus....
s, whale
Whale

Whales are marine mammals of order Cetacea which are neither dolphinsmembers, in other words, of the families Oceanic dolphin or River dolphinnor porpoises....
s, seals
Pinniped

Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae ....
, sea lion
Sea Lion

For other uses of the term "sea lion", see Sea lion .Sea lions are any of seven species in six genera of modern pinnipeds including one extinct ....
s, sea otter
Sea Otter

The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 Kilogram , making them the heaviest members of the Mustelidae, but among the smallest marine mammals....
s, and walrus
Walrus

The walrus is a large pinniped marine mammal with a discontinuous circumpolar distribution in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere....
es), sirenians eat primarily sea-grasses and other aquatic vegetation and have an extremely low metabolism
Metabolism

Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms in order to maintain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments....
 and poor tolerance for especially cold water. Sirenians have been observed eating dead animals (sea gulls), but their diet is made up primarily of vegetation. Like dolphins and whales, manatees and the Dugong are totally aquatic mammals that never leave the water — not even to give birth. These animals have been observed eating grass clippings from homes adjacent to water ways, but in this rare occurrence, only the top portion of the sirenia is lifted out of the water. The combination of these factors means that sirenians are restricted to warm shallow coastal waters, estuaries
Estuary

An estuary is a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
, and rivers, with healthy ecosystem
Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical factors of the environment....
s that support large amounts of seagrass and/or other vegetation.

The Trichechidae species differ from Dugongidae in the shape of the skull and the shape of the tail.

  • ORDER SIRENIA
    • Genus †Ishatherium
      Ishatherium

      Ishatherium is an extinct genus of early Proboscidea from the early Eocene of the Subathu formation in Northwestern India.It is only known from a partial upper molar and was formerly classified as a Sirenia....
      • †Ishatherium subathuensis
    • Family †Prorastomidae
      • Genus †Pezosiren
        Pezosiren

        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....
        • †Pezosiren portelli
      • Genus †Prorastomus
        Prorastomus

        Prorastomus sirenoides is an extinct species of primitive sirenian that lived during the Eocene Epoch 40 million years ago in Jamaica....
        • †Prorastomus sirenoides
    • Family †Protosirenidae
      • Genus †Protosiren
        Protosiren

        Protosiren is an extinct genus of early sirenian of the family Protosirenidae, the family from which Dugongidae is thought to have evolved sometime in the Early to Middle Eocene....
        • †Protosiren minima
        • †Protosiren sattaensis
        • †Protosiren fraasi
        • †Protosiren smithae
    • Family Dugongidae
      Dugongidae

      Dugongidae is a Family in the Order of Sirenia.The family has one surviving species, the Dugong , one recently Extinction species, the Steller's Sea Cow , and a number of extinct genera known from the fossil record....
      • Genus †Sirenotherium
        • †Sirenotherium pirabense
      • Subfamily Dugong
        Dugong

        The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's Sea Cow , was hunted to extinction in the 18th century....
        inae
        • Genus Dugong
          Dugong

          The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's Sea Cow , was hunted to extinction in the 18th century....
          • Dugong dugon
            Dugong

            The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's Sea Cow , was hunted to extinction in the 18th century....
            , Dugong
      • Subfamily Hydrodamalinae
        Hydrodamalinae

        Hydrodamalinae is a recently extinct subfamily of the Sirenia family Dugongidae. The Steller's Sea Cow was hunted to extinction by 1760, while the genus Dusisiren is known from fossils dating from the middle Miocene to early Pliocene....
        • Genus †Dusisiren
          • †Dusisiren dewana
          • †Dusisiren jordani
          • †Dusisiren takasatensis
        • Genus †Hydrodamalis
          • †Hydrodamalis cuestae
          • †Hydrodamalis gigas
            Steller's Sea Cow

            Steller's sea cow is an extinct, large sirenian mammal formerly found near the Asiatic coast of the Bering Sea. It was discovered in the Commander Islands in 1741 by the German naturalist Georg Steller, who was traveling with the explorer Vitus Bering....
            , Steller's Sea Cow
    • Family Trichechidae
      • Subfamily †Miosireninae
        • Genus †Anomotherium
          • †Anomotherium langewieschei
        • Genus †Miosiren
          • †Miosiren canhami
          • †Miosiren kocki
      • Subfamily Trichechinae
        • Genus †Potamosiren
          • †Potamosiren magdalenensis
        • Genus Trichechus
          • Trichechus manatus
            West Indian Manatee

            The West Indian Manatee is a manatee, and the largest surviving member of the aquatic mammal order Sirenia .The West Indian Manatee, Trichechus manatus, is a species distinct from the Amazonian Manatee, Amazonian Manatee, and the West African Manatee, West African Manatee....
            , West Indian Manatee
            • Trichechus manatus manatus, Antillean Manatee
            • Trichechus manatus latirostris, Florida Manatee
          • Trichechus senegalensis
            African Manatee

            The African Manatee is a species of manatee, and is the least studied of the four species of Sirenians. Photos of African Manatees are very rare; although very little is known about this species, scientists think they are similar to the West Indian Manatees....
            , African Manatee
          • Trichechus inunguis
            Amazonian Manatee

            The Amazonian Manatee is a species of manatee that lives in the freshwater habitats of the Amazon basin. They are found in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana and Venezuela....
            , Amazonian Manatee
          • Trichechus bernhardi
            Dwarf Manatee

            The Dwarf Manatee is a possible species of manatee that lives in the freshwater habitats of the Amazon rainforest, though restricted to one tributary of the Rio Aripuan?....
            , Dwarf Manatee
      • Genus †Ribodon
        Ribodon

        Ribodon is an extinct genus of Sirenia....
        • †Ribodon limbatus
† extinct

See also

  • Evolution of sirenians
    Evolution of sirenians

    Sirenia is the order of placental mammals which comprise modern "sea cows" and their extinct relatives. They are the only extant herbivorous Marine mammals and the only group of herbivorous mammals to have become completely aquatic....


External links

  • Sirenian International - Manatee & Dugong Research, Education, & Conservation
  • .
  • Save The Manatee - Help protect this endangered species.