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The Fossil Record of Sea Cows (Mammalia: Sirenia) in Greece

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Fossil Vertebrates of Greece Vol. 1

Abstract

Sea cows are a group of aquatic, mainly marine mammals (Mammalia: Sirenia), being common dwellers in shallow coastal and transitional environments of the former Tethys Ocean, and which are found in the fossil record from the early Eocene till present. The review of the fossil record of this group in Greece revealed the presence of a single sirenian taxon, Metaxytherium medium, belonging to the family Dugongidae. Sirenian remains have been found to date in at least 20 localities, in upper Miocene sediments mainly of Tortonian age. Notably, 18 of the reported localities have been found all over Crete, one locality is reported for the first time herein from Gavdos Island and one more also reported for the first time herein that has been found on Cephalonia Island. The most important finding is possibly the articulated skeleton found in the locality Stylos of Apokoronas province in Western Crete.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Charalampos Fassoulas, curator of the Natural History Museum of Crete for providing to us the access to the paleontological collections of the museum to study the Sirenian material. We would also like to thank Apostolos Alexopoulos, Euterpi Koskeridou, and Markus Reuter for providing us information about the fossiliferous Sirenian sites of Gavdos, Filippoi, Psalida, and Apomarma. We deeply thank M. Uhen and A. Collareta for their comments that helped improve this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, University of Patras, Rio Patras, Greece

    George Iliopoulos

  2. Limassol, Cyprus

    Kaliana Svana

  3. Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Socrates Roussiakis

Authors
  1. George Iliopoulos
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  2. Kaliana Svana
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  3. Socrates Roussiakis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to George Iliopoulos .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Museo Paleontólogico Egidio Feruglio, CONICET, Trelew, Argentina

    Evangelos Vlachos

Appendix

Appendix

List of the Greek localities containing sea cow fossils. Locality numbers refer to the collection numbers of the PaleoBiology Database (PBDB)

LocalitiesPBDB No

Age

Taxon

Machairidi Gdochia, Lassithi204401

Late Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.1

Kotsiana, Chania110125

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.2,3

Kotsiana 7 further sites, Chania204403

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.3

Stylos, Chania110123

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium medium3

Gavdos, Chania**

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium medium*

Psalida, Heraklion110130

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.4

Kefala Gergeri, Heraklion110127

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.3

Panassos, Heraklion106474

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium medium3

Panassos 2, Heraklion106474

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium medium3

Apomarma, Heraklion110131

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.4

Voulismata Ampelouzos, Heraklion110126

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.3

Vasiliki 1, Heraklion110132

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.4

Vasiliki 2, Heraklion110132

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.5

Arkalies Leukochori, Heraklion

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.*

Timpana, Lassithi110174

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium medium6

Kefala, Lassithi110175

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium medium6

Tripitos, Lassithi110128

Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium medium3

Afrata, Chania110124

Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.3

Mouchli Lakkos, Chania204042

Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.6

Filippoi, Heraklion

Miocene

Metaxytherium sp.***

Skineas, Cephalonia

Late Tortonian, Miocene

Metaxytherium cf. medium*

  1. *New locality reported herein
  2. **A. Alexopoulos, personal communication
  3. ***E. Koskeridou, personal communication
  4. 1Μarkopoulou-Diakantoni (2001), 2Symeonidis and Schultz (1973), 3Svana et al. (2010), 4Reuter (2006), 5Kröger (2004), 6Μarkopoulou-Diakantoni and Logos (2004)

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Iliopoulos, G., Svana, K., Roussiakis, S. (2022). The Fossil Record of Sea Cows (Mammalia: Sirenia) in Greece. In: Vlachos, E. (eds) Fossil Vertebrates of Greece Vol. 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68398-6_14

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