MickeyRayRex on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/mickeyrayrex/art/Afrotherians-655267743MickeyRayRex

Deviation Actions

MickeyRayRex's avatar

Afrotherians

By
Published:
7.6K Views

Description

Afrotheria is a clade of mammals whose common ancestry lies in the African continent. Living members are small to medium sized insect-eaters, such as the aardvark, tenrecs, and elephant shrews, and small to large herbivores like the hyrazes, manatees and elephants. DNA and anatomical analysis point to these groups of animals all originating on the African continent from a small hyrax/shrew like ancestor some 60 million years ago, very shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The group diversified into numerous families, many now extinct like the rhinoceros like Arsinotherium, while Africa remained isolated from the other continents until mammalian families from Eurasia and North America migrated onto the continent. Today all afrotherians are found in Africa and surrounding islands, except for the Asian elephant and the marine manatees and dugong. Elephants are the largest land animals alive today and are very important herbivores in their ecosystems, while their closest cousins the manatees and the dugong are marine herbivores who are found in coastal waters as well as major rivers and swamps in the tropics. These animals, known as the sirens because it is believed the legend of the mermaid came from misinterpreted sightings of manatees surfacing to breath, are also called sea cows because they mostly eat seagrass and other aquatic vegetation. They have wide, flexible lips for grazing, and forelimbs turned into flippers to help them swim, while the hind limbs are completely lost. Manatees retain small nails on their flippers, a reminder of their relationship to the elephants. A manatees tail is paddle shaped while the dugong's tail is fluked like a whale. All four living siren species are threatened by humans in the form of habitat loss from coastal development, hunting, and injury from motorboats. The largest species, the Steller's sea cow of the North Pacific, was hunted to extinction the 1700s. Hyraxes are the next closest relatives of elephants but unlike them or the sea cows are small herbivores. In general morphology they resemble rodents such as groundhogs. Like rodents hyraxes have continuously growing incisors. Like ruminant mammals, hyraxes have a multi-chambered stomach and small hooves on their feet. All hyraxes come from Africa and the Middle East and are found in rocky habitats. The aardvark is the only living member of its kind and is very similar to the anteaters of the Americas, with long claws for digging into anthills and carving burrows, and a long snout and tongue for smelling out and collecting food, mostly ants and termites but also certain fruits. Elephant shrews, named for their long trunk-like snouts, are found in many habitats throughout Africa, running through the underbrush after insects and small prey. Tenrecs are found in mainland Africa but are most diverse on the island of Madagascar, filling the ecological niches of numerous small insect eaters from elsewhere such as shrews, moles, hedgehogs and even otters.

Species shown:
West Indian manatee/ Trichechus manatus
Lowland streaked tenrec/ Hemicentetes semispinosus
Aardvark/ Orycteropus afer
Black and rufous elephant shrew/ Rhynchocyon petersi
Yellow-spotted hyrax/ Heterohyrax brucei
Dugong/ Dugong dugon
Giant rhinophant/ Arsinotherium zetteli
Image size
960x618px 92.93 KB
© 2017 - 2024 MickeyRayRex
Comments20
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Paraceratherium's avatar

Not enough room on the page for Desmostylians?