Changes

==Description==

==Description==

Among the crew in Bering's mission was a German naturalist, [[Georg Wilhelm Steller]], and it is from his 1751 work ''De Bestiis Marinis'' that we have the only account of the sea cow and its habits from life.  It was a large animal, approximately 26 feet long and weighing up to 4 tons.  It was very dark, almost black, in color, and Steller described the inch-thick wrinkled skin as "more like the bark of an ancient oak than unto the skin of an ancient animal...black, mangy, wrinkled, rough, hard, and tough," apparently covered throughout with what he called a "hard cuticle."  Body hair was limited to thick bristles which lined the mouth and smaller hairs on the stubby arms.  The eyes were small and did not have functioning eyelids; rather, Steller noted, they were covered with a "cartilaginous crest" like the sea other, which did the function of a nictating membrane.  The ears were small holes in the sides of the head.  The tail was whale-like, unlike the manatee with its rounded tail

Among the crew in Bering's mission was a German naturalist, [[Georg Wilhelm Steller]], and it is from his 1751 work ''De Bestiis Marinis'' that we have the only account of the sea cow and its habits from life.  It was a large animal, approximately 26 feet long and weighing up to 4 tons.  It was very dark, almost black, in color, and Steller described the inch-thick wrinkled skin as "more like the bark of an ancient oak than unto the skin of an ancient animal...black, mangy, wrinkled, rough, hard, and tough," apparently covered throughout with what he called a "hard cuticle."  Body hair was limited to thick bristles which lined the mouth and smaller hairs on the stubby arms.  The eyes were small and did not have functioning eyelids; rather, Steller noted, they were covered with a "cartilaginous crest" like the sea otter, which did the function of a nictating membrane.  The ears were small holes in the sides of the head.  The tail was whale-like, unlike the manatee with its rounded tail

Feeding consisted of hours spent on beds of seaweed, grazing rather like cattle for hours.  They frequented river and stream outlets where they lived in herds, keeping the calves in the center as protection from possibly their only natural enemy, [[killer whale]]s.

Feeding consisted of hours spent on beds of seaweed, grazing rather like cattle for hours.  They frequented river and stream outlets where they lived in herds, keeping the calves in the center as protection from possibly their only natural enemy, [[killer whale]]s.