New Study Reveals Now-Bone Dry Egyptian Desert Was Home to Ancient Relatives of Manatees 40 Million Years Ago
Experts suggest that adorable relatives of sea cows and dugongs once dominated Egypt's Eastern Desert. The finding was presented by researchers at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual conference in 2020, Live Science reported.
In 2019, scientists uncovered some Sirenia fossils in Egypt that featured a Late Eocene creature's vertebrae, ribs, and limb bones. The location where the fossils were found used to be a water body, but now is a dry land. On analysis, the fossil was revealed to be of a creature from the Dugongidae family.
The fossil was dated back to around 40 million to 35 million years. This implies that the being was swimming through the area during the late Eocene period. Researchers were quite intrigued to see such a well-preserved fossil from that era.
"It is almost a grown individual," said Mohamed Korany Ismail Abdel-Gawad, a lecturer of vertebrate paleontology and supervisor of the Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory at Cairo University, and lead author.
Ancient Sirenia fossils have been found earlier in places like Libya, Somalia, Togo, and Madagascar, but this one is unique because of the place where it was discovered. Never before have experts found Sienia fossils in the Beni Suef Formation, a group of rock units dating back to the Eocene period.
Researchers believe that the fossil's origin indicates that ancient relatives of manatees (sea cows) and dugongs had already entered Egypt's desert by the time the late Eocene period arrived.
Before this discovery, experts knew that the earliest known Sirenia (Pezosiren portelli) originated during the middle Eocene period in Jamaica. The mammal ancestor was a semi-aquatic being and still had certain features of a terrestrial creature- front and hind limbs, as per a study published in ResearchGate.
The mammals over the years evolved into becoming completely aquatic. The 2012 publication claimed that by the late Eocene the Sirenia mammal species had flippers in place of front limbs and no hind limbs. This was proven true after the fossil was found in 2019.
(Image Source: Getty Images/Photo by Colors and shapes of underwater world)
The newfound fossils have also enabled researchers to discover more about the environment in Egypt's Eastern Desert at that time. According to the evidence found in the fossils, the creature lived in a shallow marine environment.
"As they are herbivorous mammals, they are inhabiting the coastal marine waters and marine wetlands," Abdel-Gawad added. This is not different from the way present-day sea cows survive in their habitat. These creatures primarily live on sea grasses which grow in clear and shallow waters to get the required sunlight.
The fact that both present-day sea cows and creatures from the Dugongidae family in the Late Eocene period had similar habitats indicates that some environmental conditions remained the same. "This was seemingly true for most sirenians throughout their evolutionary history, and Sirenians are thus important paleoenvironmental indicators," the 2012 publication added.