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Today’smanateesoften summertime off the coast of Texas and Florida , heading far to the south toward affectionate waters in the winter . Now , new fossils suggest that their glass age ascendent may have made the same migrations .
Eight Pleistocene manatee bones — rib , jaw and other fragment — found along the Texas coast reveal that manatees either lived in the field or jaw it regularly between 11,000 and 240,000 twelvemonth ago . This finding is surprising , because it indicates that either Texas coastal piddle were fond than expected during the ice age , or ancient manatees were more tolerant of cold than their modern relatives .
Manatees lived in Texas during the last ice age, according to fossil evidence found along Texas beaches.
Six of the fossils add up from private collections donated to Sam Houston State University ( SHSU ) in Huntsville over 50 years . The other two are in the assemblage of the Jackson Museum of Earth History at the University of Texas at Austin .
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" We have them from one decade to another , so we know it ’s not from some old Trichechus manatus that wash up , and we have them from different place , " SHSU instinctive History Collections conservator William Godwinsaid in a statement . " All these lines of evidence support that Trichechus manatus bones were come up in a constant way . "
A manatee lower jaw fossil. Its S-shaped curve is a distinctive manatee trait. (Scale bar is 0.8 inches, or 2 centimeters.)(Image credit: Bell et al.)
All but one of the bones fare fromTrichechus manatus , the same mintage that traverses Gulf Coast waters today , placidly pasture on sea grasses . The last off-white , an upper lower jawbone donate by U.S. Rep. Brian Babin ( R - Texas ) , belongs to an extinct subspecies , Trichechus manatus bakerorum .
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A manatee rib fossil fragment. (Scale bar is 0.8 inches, or 2 centimeters.)(Image credit: Bell et al.)
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The discovery of so manyPleistocenemanatee specimens was a surprisal , Godwin said , because the animals were n’t cerebrate to be able to hazard that far north during the last ice age , when glaciers embrace upper North America and much of the Gulf Coast had a climate like today ’s Siberia Taiga .
Manatees do n’t have any insulating fatness , and their metabolic rate is low , so they can survive only in subtropical and tropic waters , consort toAnimal Diversity Web .
The trash age manatees may have launch refuge in shallow , warm inlets , provide them to come through despite the colder temperature of the time . The Texas coast extended farther into the Gulf of Mexico , and its river release were full than today ’s , University of Texas geologist David Mohrig , who was not part of the enquiry squad , said in the statement .
The result were published Oct. 1 in the journalPalaeontologia Electronica .
Originally published on Live Science .
