#steller's sea cows

[antiqueanimals]

Wild Animals of Yesterday & To-Day. Written by Frank Finn. Illustrated by Cuthbert Edmund Swan. 1913.

Internet Archive

#recently extinct #sea cows #steller's sea cows #canines #foxes #arctic foxes #animal death #Cuthbert Edmund Swan

[despazito]

zoology joke

#they hand bones gone #moa #stellers sea cow

[theyshapedlikefriends]

Sunlemon - LOST ANIMALS

#plush #plushie #plushies #plushblr #plushcore #toycore #soft toy #stuffed animals #sunlemon #lost animals #extinct animals #mammoth #steller's sea cow #dodo #japanese wolf #great auk #plush: prehistoric #plush: pachyderm #marine mammals #plush: bird #plush: wolf #plush: canine

[cryptid-quest]

Cryptid of the Day: Steller’s Sea Cow

Description: The Steller Sea Cow is one of many fantastic creatures that went extinct through overhunting. However, since its extinction, there have been many people who claimed to have seen the animal. The most recent sighting occurred in 1976 off the coast of Anapkinskaya Bay.

#cryptid #cryptids #cryptozoology #cryptid of the day #steller's sea cow

[tsaagan]

Steller’s sea cow Hydrodamalis gigas

The Finnish Museum of Natural History, Helsinki, Finland

#steller's sea cow #mammals #not dinosaurs #museum #helsinki #finland

[yinza]

Man, I am... real bad at remembering to share plush work on here. Here’s just a dump of various custom orders I’ve made over the past while that I never thought to upload. Mostly birds, since that is what I have inadvertantly made myself known for.

[Image Description: A series of photos of various handmade plushies: a set of five pigeons, a black-crowned night heron with a retractable neck, a blue jay, a white cockatoo, a meadowlark, a common grackle, a greenland shark, and a steller’s sea cow. /end ID]

#birds #plushies #pigeons #herons #blue jays #cockatoos #meadowlarks #grackles #greenland shark #steller's sea cow #yinza's crafts

[sixth-extinction]

Various objects carved from "mermaid ivory," from the private collection of professor Lorelei Crerar. [x]

Manatees and dugongs are protected species, but because the Steller's sea cow has been extinct for over 200 years, trade in their bones is actually legal under the Endangered Species Act and related international laws.

Steller's sea cow bones are sometimes called "mermaid ivory," although this nickname is sometimes used for walrus bones as well. When tested, some of Crerar's collection came back containing whale or dolphin DNA, but some were genuine Steller's sea cow bones from a previously unknown population.

#steller's sea cow #mermaid ivory #ivory #endangered species act #extinct animals

[willtheweaver]

First Wet Beast Wednesday of the year! So without further ado…

All animals will behave as they would in the wild (or as close to for all extinct species) except that your defender(s) will not cause friendly fire. However, any attempt to attack and/or eat your defender(s) will cause them to turn on you.

#poll #wet beast wednesday #invertibrates #cnidarians #jellyfish #crustaceans #lobster #radiodonts #fish #sharks #deep sea fish #cetaceans #whales #sirenia #Steller’s sea cow #extinct species #marine life #marine biology

[mushroominawaterbottle]

Everyday i wake up and think about stellers sea cow and cry a little bit

#they were such sweet and gentle creatures #and they were hunted to extinction #;-; #steller's sea cow

[pencroft]

#Steller's sea cow

[nazrigar]

Shark Week Day 2: Shortfin Mako Shark

Day 2: Featuring Marko, the Shortfin Mako Shark and his faithful pet, Benny, the Blue Shark!

Marko here is a Sea Cow herder, as herding is the other most important form of sustenance for Merfolk besides farming. Herders lead their flocks, pods and herds from area to area, looking for the best grazing and feeding grounds for their livestock.

The most famous herd animals are Sea Cows, specifically the Goliath Meershten here, who aren’t even fully grown.

The Meershten is based off of the extinct Steller’s Sea Cow, who were taken from us far too soon during the 1760s.

Day 1: Blacktip Reef Shark

#shark week #shark week 2022 #shortfin mako shark #blue shark #merfolk #mermaid #character design #creature design #hydrodamalis #sea cow #steller's sea cow #marine biology #beast fables

[plushav]

TST 100+1 Steller's sea cow

#steller's sea cow #sea cow #sirenia #marine #plushie #tst #taiyo sangyo #jp

[alexsrandomramblings]

It's sad to me, how few people up here know we used to have our own sea cow. And yeah, they went extinct in the 1760s, and they're a more obscure one, but it's still sad.

#alex rambles #steller's sea cow

[endlingmusings]

An illustration of a Steller’s sea cow from “Extinct Monsters: A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life” (1896). First described by Georg Wilhelm Steller in 1741, overhunting would drive the species to extinction less than three decades later. [ x ]

#Steller's sea cow #Mammal #EX #Art #Upload

[nedlittle]

for the ask game: CORAL just for u bestie

[through tears] thank u

coral: an animal you wish hadn't gone extinct

i mean. i get sad thinking about any animal going extinct but i really want to talk about steller's sea cow

steller's sea cow was a sirenian (same family as manatees and dugongs) example of ice age megafauna. it outlived other ice age critters such as sabre-tooth cats and giant sloths, surviving all the way up to the 18th century. unlike its sirenian cousins, steller's sea cows lived in the icy waters of the bering strait; historical record only mentions them around the commander islands, but there is archaeological evidence that they hung out around the aleutian archipelago a thousand years ago, give or take (altho there are maybe some issues with radiocarbon dating and classification? idk i am not a scientist i am an idiot with wikipedia)

(yellow is their prehistoric range, blue is historical, and red is for archaeological evidence)

they were well-evolved for their environment, with 10 cm of thick blubber, dense bones, a transparent third eyelid, and no teeth. they ate exclusively seaweed and were apparently docile. they lived in small family groups and were monogamous. that they managed to survive so long is likely attributed to a lack of human contact*

*contact with white people.

steller's sea cow was first recorded in western science in 1741 by german scientist georg wilhem steller. steller was part of the great northern expedition/second kamchatka expedition, led by vitus bering for whom the bering sea is named. the expedition was shipwrecked for a year on its return journey from alaska, and it was then that steller's sea cow was first discovered, named, and researched by western scientists.

as i said before, they were docile & friendly animals without any real way of defending themselves. they were also positively buoyant, which made them difficult for killer whales to drown, but easy prey for hungry, curious humans. the population had been decreasing in the millennia since the ice age, and by the time steller and the rest of the crew first encountered them, there were only a couple thousand remaining at most.

their meat apparently tasted like corned beef, their fat like almond oil; their milk was turned into butter, and their hide into shoes and belts. in short, they were profitable, easy targets for hunters, fur traders, and nearby sailors.

other environmental factors contributed to their demise, but increased human contact could not have helped. in 1768, 27 years after they were first discovered, steller's sea cow was declared extinct. there were alleged sightings in the years after they were declared extinct, but there are no sea cows in the bering sea today, and there haven't been for over 200 years.

if i think about steller's sea cow--twice the size of a manatee, gentle and loyal with no means of defence, and hunted to extinction within three decades of formal discovery--i become blinded by tears and holy rage. thanks for coming to my ted talk, there's a solid article going more into the science from the atlantic.

#rori thank u for enabling my mini essay on steller's sea cow #there's a specimen in the museum of natural history in london if anyone wants to say hello to it. blow it a kiss from me <3 #i learned about these guys from icebound by andrea pitzer which i otherwise found confused and lethargic #rorindiel #answered #there are many names in history #long post #the kit nedlittle guarantee that 90% of asks will be answered with minimum three paragraphs. apparently

[tsaagan]

Skeleton of steller’s sea cow, this is something you don’t see in every natural history museum!

The Finnish Museum of Natural History, Helsinki, Finland

#steller's sea cow #mammals #not dinosaurs #museum #helsinki #finland