Dugongidae

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Dugongidae
Late Eocene-Holocene
A dugong in Marsa Alam
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Sirenia
Family: Dugongidae
Gray, 1821
Genera

Dugong
Hydrodamalis
And see text

Dugongidae is a family in the order of Sirenia. The family has one surviving species, the dugong (Dugong dugon), one recently extinct species, Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas), and a number of extinct genera known from fossil records.

Dugong skeleton displayed at Philippine National Museum

Dugongidae's body weight ranges from 217 to 307 kg for juveniles, 334 to 424 kg for subadults, and 435 to 568.5 kg for adults. Oral temperatures for individual dugongs is determined from 24° to 34.2 °C. Heart rate readings are from 40 to 96 bpm and vary between individual dugongs. Respiration rate during the out-of-water phase is from 1 to 33.[2]

Taxonomy

The genera Eosiren, Eotheroides, and Prototherium have been assigned to Halitheriinae in the past, but recent cladistic analysis recovers these genera as basal to the clade formed by Trichechidae and Dugongidae. Moreover, Halitheriinae is paraphyletic with respect to Dugonginae and Hydrodamalinae, and further use of the name should be discontinued because the type genus is based on a non-diagnostic tooth.[8]

Phylogeny

Afrotheria

References

  1. OCLC 62265494
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  7. ^ Furusawa, Hitoshi (1988). A new species of hydrodamaline Sirenia from Hokkaido, Japan. Takikawa Museum of Art and Natural History. pp. 1–73.
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