14 DAY TRIAL // In a recent study in the journal Historical Biology, researchers with the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, announce the discovery of a previously undocumented aquatic mammal that lived about 23 million years ago in Alaska.
Fossilized remains belonging to this new mammal species have so far only been recovered from the Unalaska Island in the North Pacific. Having examined them, researchers concluded that the species was about the size of a modern hippo, which can grow to weigh 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds).
The ancient creature, belonging to a group of marine mammals known to paleontologists and wildlife researchers as Desmostylia, had a long snout and a fairly impressive set of tusks. It looked quite scary, but there is no evidence it was a predator.
Rather, experts suspect the odd-looking animal was a vegetarian and that is used its elongated snout as a vacuum cleaner to suck in whatever vegetation it found along local shorelines. To help with the suction, it had strong muscles in its neck.
“The animals buttressed their lower jaw with their teeth against the upper jaw, and used the powerful muscles that attached there, along with the shape of the roof of their mouth, to suction-feed vegetation from coastal bottoms. Big muscles in the neck would help to power their tusks,” scientists say.
The fact that this creature didn't chew its food but instead sucked it in explains why neither of the teeth discovered by paleontologists show any signs of damage resulting from habitual chewing.
The Southern Methodist University research team suspect that, together with other Desmostylia species, this recently discovered one went extinct about 10 million years ago.
