Researches discover new Sirenias in Moroco’s Dakhla

Moroccans and US researchers have discovered two Sirenian species on the east and west coasts of Moroco’s Dakhla.

The Sirenia, also known as sea cows, are an order of fully aquatic mammals that inhabit swamps, rivers, and coastal marine waters.

Paleontologists from the Ain Chock Faculty of Science, Hassan II University of Casablanca, and the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michiga said sirenians are “the only extant herbivorous marine mammals, and the only herbivorous mammals to have become exclusively aquatic”.

The research recently published in the Journal of African Earth Sciences, has allowed Moroccan and US paleontologists to identify a new genus and a new species of Sirenians that they named “Dakhlasiren marocensis.”

The research further noted that “only Sirenians known from Morocco previously are those from the Pliocene of Dar Ben Hamri.”