Fossil Sirenia from the Pleistocene of Qatar: new questions about the antiquity of sea cows in the Gulf Region

Nicholas D Pyenson; Mehsin Al-Ansi; Clare M Fieseler; Khalid Hassan Al Jaber; Katherine D Klim; Jacques LeBlanc; Ahmad Mujthaba Dheen Mohamed; Ismail Al-Shaikh; Christopher D Marshall

doi:10.7717/peerj.14075

Fossil Sirenia from the Pleistocene of Qatar: new questions about the antiquity of sea cows in the Gulf Region

PeerJ. 2022 Oct 18:10:e14075. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14075. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, District of Columbia, United States.
² Department of Paleontology and Geology, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle, Washington State, United States.
³ Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar.
⁴ National Museum of Qatar, Qatar Museums, Doha, Qatar.
⁵ Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
⁶ ExxonMobil Research Qatar, Doha, Qatar.
⁷ Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&M University-Galveston, Galveston, Texas, United States.
⁸ Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States.

Abstract

One of the largest and least documented populations of dugongs (Dugong dugon) resides in the coastal waters of the United Arab Emirates, and waters surrounding Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar. The archaeological record of dugongs in the Gulf Region is abundant, but little is known about their fossil record in the region. Here we report an isolated sirenian rib fragment from the Futaisi Member of the Fuwayrit Formation near the town of Al Ruwais, in northern Qatar. The Fuwayrit Formation is a marine Pleistocene deposit exposed onshore in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Based on the correlative dating of the basal Futaisi Member with other onshore platforms, the rib fragment is approximately 125 ka. We propose that this isolated rib (likely the first rib from the right side) belongs to Dugongidae, with strong similarities to extant Dugong. We cannot, however, eliminate the possibility that it belongs to an extinct taxon, especially given its similarities with other fossil dugongid material from both Qatar and elsewhere in the world. Aside from reflecting the presence of Gulf seagrass communities in the Pleistocene, this occurrence also suggests that different (and potentially multiple) lineages of sirenians inhabited the Gulf Region in the geologic past.

Keywords: Fossil record; Neogene; Pleistocene; Sirenia; Tethys Sea.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Bahrain
Dugong*
Female
Fossils*
Qatar
Sirenia

Grants and funding

Fieldwork for Nicholas D. Pyenson was supported by the Kellogg Fund and the MacMillan Fund from the Department of Paleobiology in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Fieldwork for Christopher D. Marshall was supported by Qatar National Research Fund (NPRP No. 11S-0102-180177). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.