Scientists have published a report describing what was the worst and last day for an ancient manatee or “sea cow.”
The team has analyzed the fossilized remains of an ancestor of the manatee, discovered in Venezuela and says they’ve figured out exactly how the creature died. The animal is a member of an ancestral species to the modern manatee, called Culebratherium. This particular animal was apparently bitten to death by a crocodile and a tiger shark 15 million years ago.
The fossil specimen is “super rare,” according to study author Aldo Benites-Palomino, because researchers almost never find remains that have evidence of two separate predator attacks. The team says this find also helps fill in gaps about the food chain and who was eating whom 11.6 million to 23 million years ago, a period known as the Miocene Epoch.
The remains consist of part of a skull and 13 vertebrae, and the bones showed three different kinds of bite marks. The researchers say that the shape, positioning, and depth of the bites indicates at least two predators took a chomp out of the manatee.
They believe the crocodile (the word is used as an approximation for an ancestor animal) hit the animal first, they say, and left deep tooth gouges in the manatee’s snout. They think this means the reptile was trying to suffocate the mammal (manatees are warm-blooded creatures who gave live birth to and nursed their young). Then additional tooth scrapes suggest the crocodile dragged the manatee, tearing it open.
The scientists think the move made by the crocodile is what they call a “death roll,” which is when the attacking animal spins its prey around to disorient and control it. Modern crocodiles and related animals have been observed to execute this maneuver.
But the bad day wasn’t over for this creature who left behind its bones in the fossil record. Additional marks from serrated teeth tell investigators that a tiger shark approached the animal after death and scavenged on the already dead carcass.
Modern descendants of the crocodile-like creature and the ancient tiger shark are known to go after dugongs and manatees for food, and scientists believe this is ancient feeding behavior.
