Desmostylian Size

[Mahnmut]

Hello together.

 

I just started to take a look at Desmostylia, as they still miss in my marine tetrapod collection (of more or less selfmade models)

I read in several derivative descriptions that the biggest species (without a name being mentioned) where similar in size to stellers seacow, i.e. 7-9 meters.

I believe that goes back to an article by  Nicholas D. Pyenson and Geerat J. Vermeij where marine top feeders are compared by skull size.

As Stellers seacow has an exceptionally small head for its size I wonder if that comparison makes sense?

I´d appreciate any information on bigger desmostylians and up to date reconstructions of their posture and locomotion.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Jan

 

[Fossildude19]

@Boesse

[ynot]

My understanding of the beast is that they were roughly comparable to hippopotamus. Much more than sea lions.

[Bobby Rico]

Desmostylia are cool . Maybe @caldigger will know because he lurves them bucked teeth critters.

[Fruitbat]

You might find some links to articles with pertinent information in the Desmostylia (LINK) section of my pdf library here on The Fossil Forum.

 

-Joe

[Mahnmut]

Thanks for the replies!

asfar as I can see in Fruitbats great collection of articles, Behemotops is estimated at 3.2 meters. I didn´t find anything about bigger desmostylians.

Skull size may be similar to Stellers seacow, but not the overall animal as far as I am aware of.

 

Concerning locomotion it seems to be still somewhat controverse, given that there is no closely related species surviving.

There is an animation on a certain heretic site that I know to be unreliable, the animation of a swimming Behemotops is the only one I have found though.

Still glad about any Info on this.

 

Thanks

Jan

[Boesse]

Good question! So I hadn't gotten around to looking through the data for Pyenson & Vermeij (2016) yet. Sirenians basically have a long section of caudal vertebrae that desmos do not have, since desmos have short seal-like tails. The super enormous skull measured in the mid Miocene may not be published yet, but is 80+cm in length, which is pretty stupendous; there are indeed larger skulls in west coast museums that are also unpublished. Neoparadoxia cecilialina - the spectacular skeleton on display at LACM - has a 50ish cm long skull and a body length of 2.2 meters; extrapolating that, the largest desmos would be about 3.5-4 meters long or so - quite a bit smaller than the ~8-10 meter long giant Pliocene sea cow Hydrodamalis cuestae and the recently extinct ~7-8 meter long Hydrodamalis gigas.

[Mahnmut]

Thanks Boesse,

that confirms what I suspected, no 9 m Desmostylians.

Skulls of 80 cms are still very impressive, that would be big for a hippo.

I am still ooking for good depictions of the skeletons of Behemotops or another of the bigger desmostylians

(size matters to me mostly because I cannot built animals smaller than 2 m in my  chosen 1/20 scale.)

 

lateral views are relatively easy tofind, dorsal or ventral views I didn´t see yet.

Posture is another question.

 

Thanks for any additional sources!

 

J

[Mahnmut]

 

Looking for more info on Desmostylia, who has ventral, dorsal or frontal views of Palaeoparadoxia ?

 

Thanks in Advance

J

[Fruitbat]

May not be of any direct assistance, but here is a link to the Pyenson and Vermeij article that Boesse referred to just in case you don't have it:

 

Pyenson, N.D and G.J. Vermeij (2016). The rise of ocean giants: maximum body size in Cenozoic marine mammals as an indicator for productivity in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Biol.Lett., 12: 20160186.

 

-Joe

[Mahnmut]

Thanks Fruitbat,

 

that´s the one I found after wondering where all this quotes about Hydrodamalis-sized Desmostylia came from.

 

Cheers

J