Metaxytherium
Sign in to saveMetaxytherium 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. American species of Metaxytherium are considered to be ancestral to the North Pacific family Hydrodamalinae, which includes the giant Steller's sea cow.
In the Vinony graph
Within Vinony's link graph, Metaxytherium is referenced by 91 other articles, and connects out to Steller’s sea cow, Trichechidae and Animalia.
It is catalogued under topics including Dugongidae, Fossils of Argentina and Fossils of Austria.
Its subject is documented across 11 Wikipedia language editions.
Wikidata facts
- Parent taxon
- Dugongidae
- Image
- Metaxytherium floridanum.jpg
Show 5 more facts
- taxon rank
- genus
- taxon name
- Metaxytherium
- Commons category
- Metaxytherium
- start time
- 23030000-0
- end time
- 2588000-00
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~22 min read
Encyclopedic overview
11 sectionsContents
- Discovery and naming
- Species
- Evolution
- Phylogeny
- Paleobiology
- Diet
- Predation
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
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. American species of Metaxytherium are considered to be ancestral to the North Pacific family Hydrodamalinae, which includes the giant Steller's sea cow.
==Discovery and naming== The first remains of Metaxytherium were described in 1822 by Anselme-Gaëtan Demarest as a species of Hippo, H. medius before the genus name Metaxytherium was coined in 1840 by De Christol. Although the type species was initially designated to be M. cuvieri, later publications argued that the two species are synonymous and M. medium thus holds precedence. The grammatical changes of the species name were made to match the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Metaxytherium” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.