A sea cow or a Steller's cow or also a cabbage is a mammal of the order of sirens exterminated by man. Discovered in 1741 by the expedition of Vitus Bering. The name was given in honor of the naturalist Georg Steller, the expedition doctor, on whose descriptions a significant part of the information about this animal is based.
Steller's cow was discovered by naturalist Georg Steller in 1741 under very tragic circumstances. On the way back from Alaska to Kamchatka, the ship of Vitus Bering's expedition was thrown ashore on an unknown island, where the captain and half of the crew died during a forced winter. Later this island was named after Bering. It was here that the scientist Steller first saw a sea cow, which was later named after the researcher.
In those years, a huge number of these harmless mammals inhabited the Commander Islands, also found in Kamchatka and the Kuriles. What was a sea cow? It is large (up to 10 meters in length and up to 4 tons in weight) with a forked tail, which looks like a whale. This harmless lived in shallow bays, feeding on seaweed, which earned itself another name - skit.
extermination
The sea cow treated people with great confidence, swimming up to the shores so close that it could even be stroked. But, unfortunately, many people were not up to tenderness, and the meat of the sea cow turned out to be tasty, in no way inferior to beef. The local population especially fell in love with the lard of this mammal - it had a very pleasant smell and taste, and surpassed the lard of other marine and domestic animals in its qualities. This fat had a unique property - it can be stored for a long time even on the hottest days. The cow also gave milk - fatty and sweet, similar to sheep's milk.
In his works, Steller noted the extraordinary innocence of animals. If a sea cow that swam too close to the shore was hurt, then it moved away, but soon forgot the grievances and returned again. Sea cows were caught using large hooks, to which a long rope was tied. The catcher was in the boat, and about thirty people stood on the shore and held the rope.
A significant role in the disappearance of the sea cow was played by her excessive greed for food. These voracious animals ate constantly, which forced them to keep their heads under water. Safety and caution were unknown to Steller's cows, and the fishermen took advantage of the gullibility and carelessness of mammals - you could simply swim between them in boats and choose a suitable victim.
To date, several complete skeletons of a sea cow, small pieces of skin and many scattered bones have survived. Most of them have become museum exhibits, like the world's most complete skeleton of the Steller's cow, which is stored in the Khabarovsk Museum of Local Lore. Grodekov. An important contribution to the study of the sea cow was made by an American zoologist of Norwegian origin, Steller's biographer Leonard Steineger, who conducted research on the Commanders in 1882-1883 and collected a large number of bones of this animal.
Appearance and structure
The appearance of the cabbage was characteristic of all lilacs, with the exception that the Steller's cow was much larger than its relatives. The body of the animal was thick and valky. The head was very small in comparison with the size of the body, and the cow could freely move its head both sideways and up and down. The limbs were relatively short rounded flippers with a joint in the middle, ending in a horny outgrowth, which was compared with a horse's hoof. The body ended in a wide horizontal tail blade with a notch in the middle.
The skin of the sea cow was naked, folded and extremely thick and, in Steller's words, resembled the bark of an old oak tree. Its color was from gray to dark brown, sometimes with whitish spots and stripes. One of the German researchers, who studied a preserved piece of Steller's cow skin, found that in terms of strength and elasticity it is close to the rubber of modern car tires. Perhaps this property of the skin was a protective device that saved the animal from injury from stones in the coastal zone.
The ear holes were so small that they were almost lost in the folds of the skin. The eyes were also very small, according to the descriptions of eyewitnesses - no more than those of a sheep. Soft and mobile lips were covered with vibrissae as thick as a chicken feather shaft. The upper lip was undivided. The sea cow had no teeth at all. Cabbage frayed food with the help of two white horny plates (one on each jaw). There were, according to various sources, 6 or 7 cervical vertebrae.
The presence of pronounced sexual dimorphism in the Steller's cow remains unclear. However, the males were apparently somewhat larger than the females.
Steller's cow practically did not give sound signals. She usually only snorted, exhaling air, and only when injured could she make loud moaning sounds. Apparently, this animal had good hearing, as evidenced by the significant development of the inner ear. However, the cows hardly reacted at all to the noise of the boats approaching them.
Food
Most of the time, sea cows foraged by swimming slowly in shallow water, often using their forelimbs to support themselves on the ground. They did not dive, and their backs were constantly sticking out of the water. Seabirds often sat on the backs of cows, pecking out crustaceans (whale lice) that were attached there from the folds of skin. The cows came so close to the shore that sometimes you could reach them with your hands.
Usually, the female and the male kept together with the young of the year and the young of the last year, but in general, the cows usually kept in numerous herds. In the herd, the young were in the middle. The attachment of animals to each other was very strong. It is described how the male swam for three days to the killed female lying on the shore. The cub of another female, slaughtered by industrialists, behaved in the same way. Little is known about the reproduction of cabbages. Steller wrote that sea cows are monogamous, mating apparently took place in the spring.
Sea cows fed exclusively on algae, which grew in abundance in coastal waters, primarily seaweed (hence the name "cabbage"). Feeding cows, plucking algae, kept their heads under water. Every 4-5 minutes they raised their heads for a new portion of air, making a sound somewhat reminiscent of a horse's snort. In places where the cows fed, the waves threw ashore in large quantities the roots and stems of the algae they eat, as well as droppings similar to horse dung. When resting, the cows lay on their backs, slowly drifting in the quiet bays. In general, the behavior of the cabbage girls was distinguished by exceptional slowness and apathy. In winter, the cows became very thin, so that the observer could count their ribs.
The life expectancy of a Steller's cow, like that of its closest relative, could reach ninety years. The natural enemies of this animal are not described, but Steller spoke of cases of cows dying under the ice in winter. He also said that in a storm cabbage, if they did not have time to move away from the coast, often died from hitting stones during heavy seas.
Evolution and origin of the species
The sea cow is a typical representative of the siren. Its earliest known ancestor was apparently the dugong-like Miocene sea cow Dusisiren jordani, whose fossil remains have been described in California. The study of mitochondrial DNA showed that the evolutionary divergence of sea cows and dugongs occurred no later than 22 million years ago. The sea cow Hydrodamalis cuestae, which lived in the late Miocene, about 5 million years ago, can be considered the direct ancestor of the cabbage. The closest modern relative of the Steller cow is most likely the dugong. The sea cow is assigned to the same dugong family, but it stands out in a separate genus Hydrodamalis.
The sea cow has been declared extinct. The status of its population according to the International Red Book is an extinct species. Nevertheless, sometimes there is an opinion that for some time after the 1760s, sea cows occasionally came across to the natives of the Russian Far East.
Unconfirmed evidence
So, in 1834, two Russian-Aleutian Creoles claimed that on the coast of Bering Island they saw “a lean animal with a cone-shaped body, small forelimbs, which breathed through the mouth and had no hind fins.” Such reports, according to some researchers, were quite frequent in the 19th century.
Several testimonies that have remained unconfirmed even date back to the 20th century. In 1962, members of the team of a Soviet whaler allegedly observed in the Gulf of Anadyr a group of six animals, the description of which was similar to the appearance of a Steller's cow. In 1966, an article about the observation of cabbage was published in the newspaper Kamchatsky Komsomolets. In 1976, the editors of the magazine "Vokrug sveta" received a letter from the Kamchatka meteorologist Yu. V. Koev, who said that he had seen cabbage near Cape Lopatka.
None of these observations have been confirmed. However, some enthusiasts and cryptozoologists, even now, believe it is probable that a small population of Steller cows exists in remote and hard-to-reach areas of the Kamchatka Territory. There is a discussion among amateurs about the possibility of cloning cabbage using biological material obtained from preserved skin and bone samples. If the Steller's cow survived to the modern era, then, as many zoologists write, with its harmless disposition, it could become the first marine pet.
Human activity has turned into death for many species of mammals. One of the clearest examples is the fate of the sea, or Steller's, cow. It was discovered in 1741 by Georg Steller, a member of the second expedition of Vitus Bering.
The sea cows described by him are large animals from 7.5 to 10 m long and weighing up to 4 tons. Outwardly, they looked like huge seals. The tail ended in a large fin. The hind limbs were absent, and the front ones were equipped with leathery "hooves". The mouth was toothless. Algae (mainly seaweed) were torn by cows with the help of horny ribbed plates that covered the palate and lower jaw. They lived in shallow water near the Commander Islands. Kept by families. They were slow and not at all afraid of people.
Steller's cow.
Unfortunately, the meat of sea cows was not only edible, but also very tasty. It did not have an unpleasant smell of fish, like other marine life (after all, cows ate algae). This sealed their fate. Steller's cows were exterminated at a truly cosmic speed - in just 27 years. The last sea cow killed near Bering Island was eaten by the Russian explorer Fedot Popov "with his retinue" - the same one after whom the island in the Sea of Japan is named. The extermination went so fast that when Popov finished eating this last cow, the scientific world did not even know about its existence. Steller's diaries were published only six years after this sad event. Until our time, only four complete skeletons and more scattered bones remained from cows. Poor "legacy"!
A unique animal has gone into oblivion, which, probably, could be tamed, bred and provided with meat by the Far East. True, some people express the hope that sea cows have survived in some secluded bays of the sparsely populated islands of the Bering Archipelago. And in the newspapers of Petropavlovsk, reports sometimes appear that they were even seen at sea. But there is practically no hope that these reports are true.
However, the “relatives” of the sea cow in the order of sirens - manatees and dugongs still live in warm seas. Against the background of a sea cow, they would look like dwarfs - they are 7-10 times inferior in weight to it. The similarity of sirens with pinnipeds and cetaceans is purely external - according to scientists, they come from terrestrial proboscis animals.
Candidate of Biological Sciences Nikolai Vekhov. Author's photo
I first came to Bering Island, which is part of the Commander Islands archipelago, in the summer of 1971, as a student intern at the biology faculty of Moscow State University, collecting material for my thesis. Since then, I have been interested in everything related to the Commanders, and the dream has not left me to be in these parts again. Three years ago, at the invitation of the leadership of the Commander Reserve, I visited the second largest island in the archipelago - Medny, where I studied natural complexes.
The nature of the islands holds many mysteries. One of them is connected with the history of the discovery and development of these territories. The discoverers of the Commander Islands found in their water area a giant sea animal, which, according to all the laws of biology, could not live in the cold waters of the North Pacific Ocean.
What kind of beast is this and what fate was prepared for him?
Bering Island is the largest in the Commander Islands archipelago.
The village of Nikolskoye on Bering Island.
The coastline of Bering Island is indented by sheer impregnable cliffs.
Sea cow. Copy from a drawing by Sven Waxel, made in 1742. Illustration from L. S. Berg's book “Discovery of Kamchatka and Bering's Kamchatka Expeditions. 1725-1742". Illustrations: Wikimedia Commons/PD.
A female Steller's cow as described and measured by Georg Steller. The drawing is considered to be the only depiction of this animal made from life. Illustrations: Wikimedia Commons/PD.
Skeleton of a Steller's cow on display at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Photo: FankMonk/Wikimedia Commons/CCA-SA-3.0.
Toporkov Islands (left) and Ariy Kamen.
Thickets of kelp in the North Pacific Ocean.
Northwestern seal rookery on Bering Island.
Rocky ridge on Bering Island.
Blue whale near Bering Island.
The plans for the final stage of the Second Kamchatka Expedition of 1733-1743 under the command of the outstanding navigator and polar explorer Captain-Commander Vitus Bering (see "Science and Life" No.) were grandiose: to explore the Arctic coast of Siberia and the Far East, to find sea routes unknown to navigators to the north -the western shores of America, as well as reach the coast of Japan. An outstanding achievement of this unprecedented campaign was the discovery of the Commander Islands.
On June 4, 1741, two packet boats, the "Holy Apostle Peter" under the command of Vitus Bering and the "Holy Apostle Paul", whose captain Alexei Ilyich Chirikov was appointed, set sail from the coast of Kamchatka in the area of the Peter and Paul prison, where the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky subsequently grew. Soon they got lost in the thick fog and lost each other. "Saint Peter", after an unsuccessful three-day search for the second ship, set off on a solo voyage. Despite storms and squally winds, the packet boat reached Kodiak Island off the coast of America. On the way back, the ship of brave sailors, pursued by severe weather, lost control and was seriously damaged. Death, it seemed, was inevitable, but suddenly the desperate sailors saw the silhouette of an unknown island on the horizon and on November 4, 1741 landed on it. Wintering on the island turned out to be the hardest test. Not all survived. Captain-Commander Vitus Bering has died. Here he was buried. The island was subsequently named after him, and the entire archipelago, which includes four islands (Bering, Medny, Ariy Kamen and Toporkov), was called the Commander Islands.
The second packet ship "Saint Apostle Paul" under the command of Captain-Commander Alexei Chirikov reached the shores of America and returned to Kamchatka on October 11 of the same year.
Among Bering's associates who became forced winterers was the German doctor and naturalist, associate professor of natural history at St. Petersburg University, Georg Wilhelm Steller (see "Science and Life" No.). At first he got into the land academic detachment of the expedition, but dreamed of taking part in the upcoming sea voyage. In 1741, Georg Steller was included in the crew of the St. Peter the Apostle packet boat. The scientist became a witness and participant in the discovery of the Commander Islands and the first collector of scientific information about plants, marine animals - seals (cats), sea lions and sea otters (sea beavers), weather and soils, mountains and coastal terraces, coastal reefs and other natural complexes of these lands .
Steller discovered a unique marine mammal on the Commanders - a sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas), named after its discoverer Steller's. The second name - cabbage (Rhytina borealis) - was invented by the naturalist himself. Mammals gathered in herds on the so-called cabbage pastures among abundant thickets of seaweed, mainly brown kelp and alaria, known as seaweed. At first, Steller believed that he was dealing with manatees, which in North America were called manates or manati (later this name began to be used in relation to all similar-looking marine mammals, including the sea cow). But he soon realized that he was wrong.
Steller was the only naturalist who saw this monster in reality, observed its behavior and described it. Based on diary entries published by L. S. Berg in the book “Discovery of Kamchatka and Bering's Kamchatka Expeditions. 1725-1742 ”(L .: Glavsevmorput Publishing House, 1935), you can imagine what the animal looked like.
“To the navel it looks like a seal, and from the navel to the tail it looks like a fish. Its skull is very similar to that of a horse, but the head is covered with meat and hair, resembling, especially with the lips, the head of a buffalo. In the mouth, instead of teeth, on each side there are two wide, oblong, flat and wobbly bones. One of them is attached to the palate, the other - to the lower jaw. On these bones there are numerous furrows converging obliquely at an angle and convex calluses, with which the animal grinds its usual food - sea plants ...
The head is connected to the body by a short neck. Most notable are the front legs and chest. Legs - from two joints, the extreme of which is quite similar to the leg of a horse. Below, these front paws are equipped with a kind of scraper made of numerous and densely set bristles. By means of these devoid of both toes and claws, the animal swims, knocks sea plants from stones and […] embraces its mate […].
The back of a sea cow is difficult to distinguish from the back of a bull, the spine protrudes in relief, on the sides there are oblong depressions along the entire length of the body.
The abdomen is round, distended, and always so full that at the slightest injury the intestines burst out with a whistle. It is similar in proportion to the belly of a frog […]. The tail, as it approaches the fin, which replaces the hind legs, becomes thinner, but its width directly in front of the fin still reaches half a meter. In addition to the fin at the end of the tail, the animal has no other fins, and in this it differs from whales. Its fin stands just as horizontally as that of whales and dolphins.
The skin of this animal has a dual nature. The outer skin is black or black-brown, an inch thick and dense, almost like cork, there are many folds, wrinkles and depressions around the head […]. The inner skin is thicker than that of a bull, very strong and white in color. Below it is a layer of fat that surrounds the entire body of the animal. The layer of fat is four fingers thick. Then comes the meat.
I estimate the weight of an animal with skin, muscles, meat, bones and entrails at 200 pounds.
Steller saw hundreds of huge humpbacked carcasses splashing at high tide, which, by his apt comparison, looked like Dutch boats turned upside down. After observing them for some time, the naturalist realized that these animals belong to a previously undescribed biological species of marine mammals from the group of sirens. In his diary, he wrote: “If I were asked how many I saw them on Bering Island, I would not hesitate to answer - they cannot be counted, they are countless ... By an accident, I got the opportunity for ten whole months to observe the way of life and habits these animals ... They appeared every day almost in front of the very door of my dwelling.
In size, cabbages looked more like elephants than cows. For example, the length of the cabbage skeleton exhibited at the St. Petersburg Zoological Museum, which, according to scientists, is 250 years old, is 7.5 m. The northern species of marine mammals from the ancient siren family was truly gigantic: the chest coverage of such a colossus exceeded six meters!
According to the surviving descriptions of the expedition members of Vitus Bering and the fishers who later visited the Commanders, the habitats of the Steller's cow were limited to two large islands of the archipelago - Bering and Medny, although modern paleontologists say that in the prehistoric era its range was wider. Surprisingly, the animals were found in cold waters just south of the winter ice line, although their close relatives, dugongs and manatees, live in warm seas. Apparently, a thick skin similar to the bark of a tree and an impressive layer of fat helped the Steller's cow to keep warm in the subarctic latitudes.
It can be assumed that cabbagefish never sailed far from the coast, since they could not dive deep in search of food, moreover, in the open sea they became prey for predatory killer whales. Animals moved along the shallows with the help of two stumps in the front of the body, resembling paws, and in deep water they pushed themselves forward, making vertical blows with a large forked tail. The skin of cabbages was not smooth, like that of a manatee or a dugong. Numerous grooves and wrinkles appeared on it - hence the fourth name of the animal - Rhytina Stellerii, which literally means "wrinkled Steller".
Sea cows, as we have already mentioned, were vegetarians. Having gathered in huge herds, they plucked underwater thickets of "algal forests" many meters high. According to Steller's observations, “these voracious creatures eat without ceasing and, due to their indefatigable voracity, almost always keep their heads under water. While they are grazing like this, they have no other worries than to stick their nose out every four or five minutes and, together with a fountain of water, push the air out of their lungs. The sound that they make at the same time resembles a horse's neighing, snoring and snorting at the same time […]. They have little interest in what is happening around, not caring at all about the preservation of their own lives and safety.
It is impossible to judge the size of Steller's cow populations during the time of Vitus Bering. It is known that Steller observed large clusters of cabbage, numbering 1500-2000 individuals. Navigators reported that they saw this animal on the Commanders "in huge numbers." Particularly large concentrations were observed near the southern tip of Bering Island, near the cape, later named Cape Manati.
In winter, sea cows became very thin and, according to Steller, were so skinny that all their vertebrae could be counted. During this period, animals could suffocate under floating ice floes, not having the strength to push them apart and breathe air. In winter, cabbage worms were often found, crushed by ice and washed ashore. The usual storms near the Commander Islands were a big test for them. Sedentary sea cows often did not have time to sail to a safe distance from the shore, and they were thrown by waves onto the rocks, where they died from hitting sharp stones. Eyewitnesses said that relatives sometimes tried to help injured animals, but, as a rule, to no avail. Similar "comradely support" later, scientists noticed in the behavior of other marine animals - dolphins and whales.
Little is known about the life of sea cows. So, Steller was amazed at the extreme gullibility of the cabbage girls. They let people close to them so close that they could be touched from the shore. And not only to touch. People killed animals for tasty meat. Cow slaughter peaked in 1754, and the last individuals disappeared around 1768. In a word, the sea cow - the northernmost species in the family of mysterious sirens - was destroyed just 27 years after it was discovered.
Almost 250 years have passed since then, but even today, among scientists and just people who are interested, there are many supporters who support the version that the “northern siren” is alive, simply, due to its small number, it is very difficult to find it. Sometimes information appears that this "monster" was seen alive. Rare eyewitness accounts give hope that tiny populations of Steller's cows could still survive in quiet and inaccessible bays. So, for example, in August 1976, in the area of Cape Lopatka (the southernmost point of the Kamchatka Peninsula), two meteorologists allegedly saw a Steller's cow. They claimed that they knew whales, killer whales, seals, sea lions, seals, sea otters and walruses well and could not confuse an unknown animal with them. Their gaze appeared to be a beast of almost five meters in length slowly swimming in shallow water. In addition, observers reported that he moved in the water like a wave: first a head appeared, and then a massive body with a tail. Unlike seals and walruses, whose hind legs are pressed to each other and resemble flippers, the animal they saw had a tail like that of a whale. A few years earlier, in 1962, information about the encounter with the manat came from scientists on a Soviet research vessel. Sailors noticed six large, unusual-looking dark-skinned animals grazing in shallow water near Cape Navarin, washed by the Bering Sea. In 1966, one of the Kamchatka newspapers reported that fishermen again saw sea cows south of Cape Navarin. And they gave a detailed and very accurate description of the animals.
Can such information be trusted? After all, eyewitnesses did not have any photographs or video footage. Some domestic and foreign experts on marine mammals argue that there is no reliable evidence of the habitation of the Steller's cow anywhere outside the Commander Islands. However, there are some facts that cast doubt on the correctness of this point of view.
A member of the Second Kamchatka Expedition, historian G.F. Miller wrote: “It must be thought that they (Aleuts. - Approx. Aut.) Feed mostly on sea animals, which are hunted in the local sea, namely: whales, manats (steller cows. - Note of the author), sea lions, fur cats, beavers (sea otters, or sea otters - Note of the author) and seals ... ”The following information can serve as an indirect confirmation of the scientist’s words: in the 20th century, the bones of the Steller’s cow, dating from prehistoric times ( about 3700 years ago), were found twice and both times - it was on the Aleutian Islands. In a word, despite the fact that Steller and the fishermen saw cabbage only on the islands of Bering and Medny, the natural range of the sea cow apparently included the coastal waters of the eastern islands of the Aleutian-Komandorsky ridge.
Throughout the centuries-old existence of our planet, many species of plants and animals have appeared and disappeared. Some of them died out due to unfavorable living conditions, climate change, etc., but most died at the hands of man. The Steller's cow, or rather the story of its extermination, has become a vivid example of human cruelty and shortsightedness, because with the speed with which this mammal was destroyed, not a single living creature on earth was destroyed.
It is assumed that the largest cow existed many millennia ago. At one time, its habitat covered most of the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, the animal was found near the Commander and Aleutian Sakhalin, Kamchatka. To the north, the manati could not live, because she needed warmer waters, and to the south she was exterminated thousands of years ago. After the sea level rose, and the Steller's cow was taken from the continents to the islands, which allowed it to survive until the 18th century, when they were inhabited by people.
The animal is named after the scientist-encyclopedist Steller, who discovered this species in 1741. The mammal was very calm, harmless and friendly. Its weight was about 5 tons, and the length of the body reached 8 m. Cow fat was especially valued, its thickness was the width of a human palm, it had a rather pleasant taste and did not deteriorate at all even in the heat. The meat resembled beef, only a little denser, and was attributed to healing properties. The hide was used to upholster boats.
Steller's cow died because of her gullibility and excessive philanthropy. She constantly ate algae, therefore, swimming near the shore, she kept her head under water, and her body on top. Therefore, it was possible to safely swim up to her on a boat and even stroke her. If the animal was hurt, then it sailed away from the shore, but soon returned again, forgetting past grievances.
About 30 people hunted cows at once, because the unfortunate ones resisted, and it was difficult to pull them ashore. When wounded, the mammal breathed heavily and moaned, if relatives were nearby, they tried to help, turned the boat over and beat the rope with their tails. Sadly, the Steller's cow has been wiped out in less than three decades since the discovery of the species. Already in 1768, the last representative of this good-natured marine life disappeared.
Today, disputes continue between scientists about the habitats of this mammal. Some argue that Steller's cows lived only near the islands of Medny and Bering, while others are inclined to think that they were also found in the region of Alaska and the Far East. But there is not so much confirmation of the second assumption, these are either corpses thrown out by the sea, or speculations of local residents. But still, the skeleton of a cow was discovered on the island of Attu.
Whatever it was, but Steller's cow was exterminated by man. From the detachment of sirens today there are still manatees and dugongs, but they are also on the verge of extinction. Constant poaching, changing the natural habitat, fatal injuries from ships - all this reduces the number of these wonderful animals every year.
There are two families in the flock of sirens, dugongs and manatees, two modern genera and four species. Sirens are marine animals that live in the warm coastal waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. They feed on algae, grass, various other aquatic plants and silt. They never come ashore, they are born and die in the water.
In external appearance, sirens do not quite look like seals, but they do not have hind flippers, only front ones, but there is a tail fin: rounded (in manats) or with a small notch (in dugongs) its flippers are located, not vertically, like in fish, but horizontally like whales. The skeleton of the hind limbs is almost completely changed. Only two or four bones remained of the sacrum. The skin is thick, up to five centimeters, folded, almost hairless, only sparse bristles are scattered on it.
There are no fangs (there were some extinct species), the upper incisors are not very similar to fangs (up to 20 centimeters long), only in male dugongs. There are up to ten molars in each half of the jaw, upper and lower, and usually only three in dugongs. As with elephants, as they wear, the front ones fall out, and new ones grow in the back. Females have a pair of nipples on their breasts, like elephants. These and other morphological features, especially pronounced in extinct sirens, indicate their common origin with elephants from ancient artiodactyl animals, in memory of which some manatees still wear rudimentary “nails” on their front flippers.
Sirens. Once upon a time, the Phoenicians had the supreme god Dagon - a bearded man with a crown on his head and a fish tail instead of legs. And in ancient Greece, young siren maidens lived, lured and lulled travelers with their beauty and singing, then died. In even more ancient times, the ancestors of sea cows left the land and went to the sea. But of the twenty genera of sirens, only three survived to the appearance of man: one of them - the Steller's cow - has already been destroyed. The dugong remained in the Pacific and Indian oceans, and the manatee (American, Amazonian and African) in the Atlantic - the only herbivorous marine mammals today.
Mermaid cows live in family couples: mom, dad and baby. Their life proceeds measuredly and leisurely: a hearty lunch, smoothly turning into dinner, warm sea baths and a sweet dream until the next dinner. Everyone would have a good life, if not for a person. Unfortunately, it is completely unclear for what reason, people decided that the fat, meat and “tears” of the dugong (fatty lubricant that flows into the corners of the eyes when the caught animal is pulled ashore) are very healing and have medicinal properties for a variety of ailments. Therefore, dugongs are hunted everywhere - with spears and nets, now there are very few of them left.
From the time of the discovery of the Steller's cow to the day when it disappeared from the face of the earth, too little time has passed. In 1741, the expedition of the famous explorer Vitus Bering took place. Unfortunately, during the trip, the commander died, and his team was forced to stay on the Commander Islands for a long time after the shipwreck. The expedition included a young naturalist Georg Steller. During the study of the island on which they fell, the scientist noticed something strange not far from the coast: there, among the sea waves, some giant creatures were gently swaying, which in their appearance resembled either wet stones or sunken boats. The animals swam slowly near the shore and periodically dived, raising clouds of spray. 
Then the naturalist did not have the opportunity to study new animals more closely. People had more important tasks: they needed to survive in the harsh northern conditions, winter was approaching, and it was necessary to prepare for it, weakened sailors were overcome by numerous diseases. The next meeting with unknown creatures took place only six months later. The sailors needed to replenish their supplies of ammunition, and they decided to hunt these animals. Of course, the beast could turn out to be a predator and people themselves would become a desirable dinner, but the situation was so desperate that there was nothing else for them to do. The hunters were lucky - formidable-looking animals turned out to be clumsy and completely peaceful.
Having received harpoons and hooks, the sailors attacked terrible monsters. When one of them was pulled out onto land and carefully examined, it became clear that this was a completely new and unknown creature to science. The strange prey looks like a seal and a whale at the same time. Steller drew attention to the fact that the animal was very reminiscent of manatees, only its size was twice as large. Nobody has ever met such a giant among sea cows.
Fortunately, despite being busy and very tired, Steller was able to describe in detail the unknown creature in his diary, talk about his behavior and habits. It is only thanks to him that science now knows the cabbage sea cow (another name for the Steller's cow) quite a lot. Apart from Steller, none of the biologists had time to see her.
According to the description of the naturalist, cows are covered with very thick and strong skin, black, hairless and bumpy. The cabbage head is small, the eyes are small, completely drowned in the folds of the skin, there are no ears, instead of them there are only small holes that are closed by a skin fold when the animal is immersed in water. The body tapers to the head and tail, the tail is somewhat reminiscent of a whale.
C teller writes that often cabbages could be found in shallow water, where the water is well warmed by the sun, and the bottom is covered with lush thickets of seaweed. Animals grazed in large groups, divided into couples with cubs, but all swam next to each other. During winter storms, the animals had a very difficult time, the grass became less, and strong storms often maimed cows and threw their bodies ashore.
Sea giants, to their misfortune, were very gullible and often allowed people very close.
When they swam near the shore, birds constantly sat on their backs, collecting every little thing that settled on the cabbage skin. During feeding, the cows could hold their breath for a long time and appeared only after 10-15 minutes to catch their breath noisily. After a hearty dinner, they would leave not far from the shore and fall asleep - it seemed that people did not bother them at all.
Sailors regularly hunted strange animals: their meat turned out to be tender and tasty. It was difficult for a peaceful creature to protect itself from an attack, but still the tribesmen never left their own in trouble. The whole series tried to save the unfortunate victim, and sometimes they succeeded. Particularly striking is the fidelity with which the male followed his captured girlfriend: even when she was already dead on the shore, he did not immediately leave her.
For quite a long time, having suffered a shipwreck, the expedition was on a small island, but nevertheless, at the cost of heroic efforts, people were able to return home. Moreover, they returned victorious, they managed to bring not only maps of new lands, but also a large load of very expensive and rare furs. Having learned about this, many enterprising trading people decided to travel to those parts where you can meet different animals that have not yet learned to be afraid of humans. At the same time, the ruthless extermination of sea cows began. Hunting expeditions, one after another, came to the shores of the Commander Islands, and the cabbages turned out to be a pleasant surprise for them. After all, now you can not spend a lot of time hunting - one killed sea giant could provide ten people with meat for a week.
For years, the cabbage hunt continued. After 27 years since the discovery, the last cow was eaten. According to old sources, this happened in 1768. A whole species of living creatures was simply eaten by careless people in a little more than a quarter of a century. In memory of the rest of humanity, as a bitter reproach, there were a few skeletons, dry skin and pencil sketches of living cabbage. It would seem that this is the end of the sad story of human greed and stupidity. But there is hope that the story may have a completely different ending.
More than a hundred years have passed since the expedition of Commander Bering took place, and in 1879 scientists learned a completely incredible thing: the inhabitants of Bering Island claimed that they met amazing animals while fishing. According to their descriptions, the researchers realized that we were talking about a Steller's cow, and various statements about a meeting with extinct animals periodically appear in newspapers. Many of them are simply unbelievable. For example, in 1962, during a scientific expedition, Russian scientists noticed huge black animals swimming off the coast of Kamchatka, which occurred either on walruses or dolphins, only of enormous size.
A few years later, Kamchatka fishermen told local naturalists that they saw amazing animals off the coast of one island and gave a detailed description of them. When they were shown a drawing of a Steller's cow, they immediately recognized it. The scientists could not believe that the cabbages were still found somewhere, but the sailors had no reason to deceive. The scientific world is divided into two camps. Some considered all the evidence a lie and a hoax, others stated that the possibility of the existence of Steller's cows is not excluded even today - the ocean is large, and they could well survive somewhere in the labyrinth of the Commander Islands. We can only hope that strange and interesting marine mammals will still meet people in the sea, and the surf will again make noise, and the waves will stroke the backs of good-natured cabbages.
