I recently encountered this facinating order (I've been looking at Cetacea recently, and the name came up), and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on where I can go to learn more. I can find a number of references to the evolution of the skull, but am having trouble finding any studies on the postcranial anatomy. In particular, I am interested in the evolution of the limbs---how they went from terrestrial limbs like the rest of us have to flippers as forelimbs and absent or vestigial rear limbs.
There is the important paper on the quadrupedal sirenian, Pezosiren (Domning, 2001, Nature), as well as some others by him on the general topic that might interest you:
DOMNING, D. P. 2000. The Readaptation of Eocene Sirenians to Life in Water. Historical Biology, 14:115-119.
DOMNING, D. P. 2001. The earliest known fully quadrupedal sirenian. Nature, 413(6856):625-627.
DOMNING, D. P. 2001. Evolution of the Sirenia and Desmostylia, p. 151-168. In J.-M. Mazin and V. d. Buffrénil (eds.), Secondary Adaptation of Tetrapods to Life in Water. Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, Munchen, Germany.
There were also other Eocene Sirenia that still retained hindlimbs and may have gotten around the globe differently than similarly quadrupedal moeritheres. There is a discussion of that in my 2010 paper with Jonathan Geisler:
BEATTY, B. L., AND J. H. GEISLER. 2010. A stratigraphically precise record of Protosiren (Protosirenidae, Sirenia) from North America. Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Palaontologie Abhandlungen, 258(2):185-194.
Let me know ([email protected]) if you would like a pdf of any of them.
Brian
Brian Beatty's previous response pretty much sums up the most important references. For more references on the Sirenia & Desmostylia, I suggest you check out http://www.sirenian.org/biblio/
You will find an extensive reference list on a wide range of topics regarding Sirenia and Desmostylia.
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