Steller's sea cow

The closely related dugong

Steller's sea cow was a member of the genus Hydrodamalis, a group of large sirenians, whose sister taxon was Dusisiren. Like those of Steller's sea cow, the ancestors of Dusisiren lived in tropical mangroves before adapting to the cold climates of the North Pacific.[27] Hydrodamalis and Dusisiren are classified together in the subfamily Hydrodamalinae,[28] which diverged from other sirenians around 4 to 8 mya.[29] Steller's sea cow is a member of the family Dugongidae, the sole surviving member of which, and thus Steller's sea cow's closest living relative, is the dugong (Dugong dugon).[30]

Steller's sea cow was a direct descendant of the Cuesta sea cow (H. cuestae),[6] an extinct tropical sea cow that lived off the coast of western North America, particularly California. The Cuesta sea cow is thought to have become extinct due to the onset of the Quaternary glaciation and the subsequent cooling of the oceans. Many populations died out, but the lineage of Steller's sea cow was able to adapt to the colder temperatures.[31] The Takikawa sea cow (H. spissa) of Japan is thought of by some researchers to be a taxonomic synonym of the Cuesta sea cow, but based on a comparison of endocasts, the Takikawa and Steller's sea cows are more derived than the Cuesta sea cow. This has led some to believe that the Takikawa sea cow is its own species.[26] The evolution of the genus Hydrodamalis was characterized by increased size, and a loss of teeth and phalanges, as a response to the onset of the Quaternary glaciation.[31][5]

Steller's sea cow was discovered in 1741 by Georg Wilhelm Steller, and was named after him. Steller researched the wildlife of Bering Island while he was shipwrecked there for about a year;[32] the animals on the island included relict populations of sea cows, sea otters, Steller sea lions, and northern fur seals.[33] As the crew hunted the animals to survive, Steller described them in detail. Steller's account was included in his posthumous publication De bestiis marinis, or The Beasts of the Sea, which was published in 1751 by the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg. Zoologist Eberhard von Zimmermann formally described Steller's sea cow in 1780 as Manati gigas. Biologist Anders Jahan Retzius in 1794 put the sea cow in the new genus Hydrodamalis, with the specific name of stelleri, in honor of Steller.[4] In 1811, naturalist Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger reclassified Steller's sea cow into the genus Rytina, which many writers at the time adopted. The name Hydrodamalis gigas, the correct combinatio nova if a separate genus is recognised, was first used in 1895 by Theodore Sherman Palmer.[5]

Stejneger's 1925 reconstruction of G. W. Steller measuring a sea cow in 1742

For decades after its discovery, no skeletal remains of a Steller's sea cow were known.[13] This may have been due to rising and falling sea levels over the course of the Quaternary period, which could have left many sea cow bones hidden.[12] The first bones of a Steller's sea cow were unearthed in about 1840, over 70 years after it was presumed to have become extinct. The first partial sea cow skull was discovered in 1844 by Ilya Voznesensky while on the Commander Islands, and the first skeleton was discovered in 1855 on northern Bering Island. These specimens were sent to Saint Petersburg in 1857, and another nearly complete skeleton arrived in Moscow around 1860. Until recently, all the full skeletons were found during the 19th century, being the most productive period in terms of unearthed skeletal remains, from 1878 to 1883. During this time, 12 of the 22 skeletons having known dates of collection were discovered. Some authors did not believe possible the recovery of further significant skeletal material from the Commander Islands after this period, but a skeleton was found in 1983, and two zoologists collected about 90 bones in 1991.[13] Only two to four skeletons of the sea cow exhibited in various museums of the world originate from a single individual.[34] It is known that Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Benedykt Dybowski, and Leonhard Hess Stejneger unearthed many skeletal remains from different individuals in the late 1800s, from which composite skeletons were assembled. As of 2006, 27 nearly complete skeletons and 62 complete skulls have been found, but most of them are assemblages of bones from two to 16 different individuals.[13]

In 2021, the nuclear genome was sequenced.[19]

The Pallas Picture is the only known drawing of Steller's sea cow believed to be from a complete specimen. It was published by Peter Simon Pallas in his 1840 work Icones ad Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica. Pallas did not specify a source; Stejneger suggested it may have been one of the original illustrations produced by Friedrich Plenisner, a member of Vitus Bering's crew as a painter and surveyor who drew a figure of a female sea cow on Steller's request. Most of Plenisner's depictions were lost during transit from Siberia to Saint Petersburg.[35][36]

Another drawing of Steller's sea cow similar to the Pallas Picture appeared on a 1744 map drawn by Sven Waxell and Sofron Chitrow. The picture may have also been based upon a specimen, and was published in 1893 by Pekarski. The map depicted Vitus Bering's route during the Great Northern Expedition, and featured illustrations of Steller's sea cow and Steller's sea lion in the upper-left corner. The drawing contains some inaccurate features such as the inclusion of eyelids and fingers, leading to doubt that it was drawn from a specimen.[35][36]

Johann Friedrich von Brandt, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences, had the "Ideal Image" drawn in 1846 based upon the Pallas Picture, and then the "Ideal Picture" in 1868 based upon collected skeletons. Two other possible drawings of Steller's sea cow were found in 1891 in Waxell's manuscript diary. There was a map depicting a sea cow, as well as a Steller sea lion and a northern fur seal. The sea cow was depicted with large eyes, a large head, claw-like hands, exaggerated folds on the body, and a tail fluke in perspective lying horizontally rather than vertically. The drawing may have been a distorted depiction of a juvenile, as the figure bears a resemblance to a manatee calf. Another similar image was found by Alexander von Middendorff in 1867 in the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and is probably a copy of the Tsarskoye Selo Picture.[35][36]

Genetic evidence suggests the Steller's sea cows around the Commander Islands were the last of a much more ubiquitous population dispersed across the North Pacific coastal zones. They had the same genetic diversity as the last and rather inbred population of woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island. During glacial periods and reduction in sea levels and temperatures, suitable habitat substantially regressed, fragmenting the population. By the time sea levels stabilized around 5,000 years ago, the population had already plummeted. Together, these indicate that even without human influence, the Steller's sea cow would have still been a dead clade walking, with the vast majority of the population having already gone extinct from natural climatic and sea level shifts, with the tiny remaining population at major risk from a genetic extinction vortex.[19]

The sea otter is a keystone species and keeps sea urchin populations in check. Its depopulation in the Aleutian Islands may have led to the decline of kelp and subsequently of sea cows.[23]

The presence of Steller's sea cows in the Aleutian Islands may have caused the Aleut people to migrate westward to hunt them. This possibly led to the sea cow's extirpation in that area, assuming it had not already happened yet, but the archaeological evidence is inconclusive.[12][43][44] One factor potentially leading to extinction of Steller's sea cow, specifically off the coast of St. Lawrence Island, was the Siberian Yupik people who have inhabited St. Lawrence island for 2,000 years. They may have hunted the sea cows into extinction, as the natives have a dietary culture heavily dependent upon marine mammals. The onset of the Medieval Warm Period, which reduced the availability of kelp, may have also been the cause for their local extinction in that area.[37] It has also been argued that the decline of Steller's sea cow may have been an indirect effect of the harvesting of sea otters by the area's aboriginal people. With the otter population reduced, the sea urchin population would have increased, in turn reducing the stock of kelp, its principal food.[23][39] In historic times, though, aboriginal hunting had depleted sea otter populations only in localized areas,[39] and as the sea cow would have been easy prey for aboriginal hunters, accessible populations may have been exterminated with or without simultaneous otter hunting. In any event, the range of the sea cow was limited to coastal areas off uninhabited islands by the time Bering arrived, and the animal was already endangered.[45][11]

When Europeans discovered them, there may have been only 2,000 individuals left.[19] This small population was quickly wiped out by fur traders, seal hunters, and others who followed Vitus Bering's route past its habitat to Alaska.[46] It was also hunted to collect its valuable subcutaneous fat. The animal was hunted and used by Ivan Krassilnikov in 1754 and Ivan Korovin 1762, but Dimitri Bragin, in 1772, and others later, did not see it. Brandt thus concluded that by 1768, twenty-seven years after it had been discovered by Europeans, the species was extinct.[1][39][47] In 1887, Stejneger estimated that there had been fewer than 1,500 individuals remaining at the time of Steller's discovery, and argued there was already an immediate danger of the sea cow's extinction.[1]

The first attempt to hunt the animal by Steller and the other crew members was unsuccessful due to its strength and thick hide. They had attempted to impale it and haul it to shore using a large hook and heavy cable, but the crew could not pierce its skin. In a second attempt a month later, a harpooner speared an animal, and men on shore hauled it in while others repeatedly stabbed it with bayonets. It was dragged into shallow waters, and the crew waited until the tide receded and it was beached to butcher it.[33] After this, they were hunted with relative ease, the challenge being in hauling the animal back to shore. This bounty inspired maritime fur traders to detour to the Commander Islands and restock their food supplies during North Pacific expeditions.[12]

While not a keystone species, Steller's sea cows likely influenced the community composition of the kelp forests they inhabited, and also boosted their productivity and resilience to environmental stressors by allowing more light into kelp forests and more kelp to grow, and enhancing the recruitment and dispersal of kelp through their feeding behavior. In the modern day, the flow of nutrients from kelp forests to adjacent ecosystems is regulated by the seasons, with seasonal storms and currents being the primary factor. The Steller's sea cow may have allowed this flow to continue year-round, thus allowing for more productivity in adjacent habitats. The disturbance caused by the Steller's sea cow may have facilitated the dispersal of kelp, most notably Nereocystis species, to other habitats, allowing recruitment and colonization of new areas, and facilitating genetic exchange. Their presence may have also allowed sea otters and large marine invertebrates to coexist, indicating a commonly-documented decline in marine invertebrate populations driven by sea otters (an example being in populations of the black leather chiton)[48] may be due to lost ecosystem functions associated with the Steller's sea cow. This indicates that due to the sea cow's extinction, the ecosystem dynamics and resilience of North Pacific kelp forests may have already been compromised well before more well-known modern stressors like overharvesting and climate change.[49][24]

Sea cow sightings have been reported after Brandt's official 1768 date of extinction. Lucien Turner, an American ethnologist and naturalist, said the natives of Attu Island reported that the sea cows survived into the 1800s, and were sometimes hunted.[43]

In 1963, the official journal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR published an article announcing a possible sighting. The previous year, the whaling ship Buran had reported a group of large marine mammals grazing on seaweed in shallow water off Kamchatka,[50] in the Gulf of Anadyr. The crew reported seeing six of these animals ranging from 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 ft), with trunks and split lips. There have also been alleged sightings by local fishermen in the northern Kuril Islands, and around the Kamchatka and Chukchi peninsulas.[51][52]

Skeleton excavated on Bering Island in 1948, Zoologisk Museum

Steller's sea cow was described as being "tasty" by Steller; the meat was said to have a taste similar to corned beef, though it was tougher, redder, and needed to be cooked longer. The meat was abundant on the animal, and slow to spoil, perhaps due to the high amount of salt in the animal's diet effectively curing it. The fat could be used for cooking and as an odorless lamp oil. The crew of the St. Peter drank the fat in cups and Steller described it as having a taste like almond oil.[53] The thick, sweet milk of female sea cows could be drunk or made into butter,[5] and the thick, leathery hide could be used to make clothing, such as shoes and belts, and large skin boats sometimes called baidarkas or umiaks.[15]

Towards the end of the 19th century, bones and fossils from the extinct animal were valuable and often sold to museums at high prices. Most were collected during this time, limiting trade after 1900.[13] Some are still sold commercially, as the highly dense cortical bone is well-suited for making items such as knife handles and decorative carvings.[13] Because the sea cow is extinct, native artisan products made in Alaska from this "mermaid ivory" are legal to sell in the United States and do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which restrict the trade of marine mammal products. Although the distribution is legal, the sale of unfossilized bones is generally prohibited and trade in products made of the bones is regulated because some of the material is unlikely to be authentic and probably comes from arctic cetaceans.[13][54]

The ethnographer Elizabeth Porfirevna Orlova, from the Russian Museum of Ethnography, was working on the Commander Island Aleuts from August to September 1961. Her research includes notes about a game of accuracy, called kakan ("stones") played with the bones of the Steller's sea cow. Kakan was usually played at home between adults during bad weather, at least during Orlova's fieldwork.[55]

Kotick the white seal talking to sea cows in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1895)

In the story The White Seal from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, which takes place in the Bering Sea, Kotick the rare white seal consults Sea Cow during his journey to find a new home.[56][57]

Tales of a Sea Cow is a 2012 docufiction film by Icelandic-French artist Etienne de France about a fictional 2006 discovery of Steller's sea cows off the coast of Greenland.[58] The film has been exhibited in art museums and universities in Europe.[59][60]

Steller's sea cows appear in two books of poetry: Nach der Natur (1995) by Winfried Georg Sebald, and Species Evanescens (2009) by Russian poet Andrei Bronnikov. Bronnikov's book depicts the events of the Great Northern Expedition through the eyes of Steller;[61] Sebald's book looks at the conflict between man and nature, including the extinction of Steller's sea cow.[62]