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Steller's sea cow is a herbivorous giant of the sea. Sea cow: description, nutrition, behavior and disappearance

A sea cow is a sea animal of enormous size. Initially, there were about 20 species of this animal, however, 3 main species are known to man:

Steller's cow

Steller's cow was exterminated in the 18th century. Approximately immediately after its description, people began to massively exterminate this species because of the very tasty meat and fat. Now all remaining species of sea cows are forbidden to be killed or caught, as they are declared endangered mammals.

Description

Weight of one adult is about 600 kg, but there were also larger specimens of 800 - 900 kg. The length varies from 3 to 7 meters. The body is heavy, spindle-shaped.

The upper lip and nose resembled a trunk. They had no teeth, instead they had two horny plates - on the lower jaw and in the sky. They have small eyes.

The tail resembles a large oar. Thanks to him, the manatee can easily swim, play, or even defend himself if necessary. True, the latter will not help much, because despite the fact that the manatee is very strong, the main hunters for it are the tiger shark and, against which such a tail is powerless.

The front flippers are quite small. They are designed to rake silt at the bottom and get various vegetation.

Habitat

According to their habitat and features, manatees are divided into three main varieties, namely:

African. African sea cows are slightly darker than their counterparts, they live in warm equatorial rivers and on the West African coast;
Amazon. Amazonian manatees live in fresh water, because their skin is smoother and shiny, and a white or pinkish spot can be found on the stomach;
American. American manatees are the most major representatives kind. They can live in both sea and salt water, most often they can be found in the Caribbean Sea.

Great depth is not suitable for these mammals. After all, there are many dangers, because they prefer shallow water up to 3 meters deep.

Nutrition. Lifestyle

Sea cows feed on plants, at the bottom of rivers and seas, that is, algae various kinds. In the morning and in the evening it is time to eat. And during the day they rest on seabed, once, in a few minutes, rising to the surface to breathe air.

Manatees eat up to 20% of their body weight daily. Therefore, they are often relocated to areas where too abundant marine vegetation pollutes the water. Thus, manatees clean the seas and rivers. These are slow, calm and good-natured animals.

reproduction

Sea cows are loners by nature. However, in case of a threat to their relatives or at certain points in their lives, they stick together for protection or raising offspring. During mating season females are courted by several males.

Pregnancy lasts approximately one year. A newborn manatee weighs about 30 kilograms, and does not exceed 1.4 meters in size. At this time, he is very vulnerable, because the female does not leave him, and gradually teaches him to survive, find food, and so on.

Two years later, the lamate begins an independent life without a mother. Although these animals are single, however, it is believed that the relationship between mother and cub lasts almost their entire life. Also, despite the fact that these are very modest animals that do not really like the presence of people, there have been cases when they themselves swam up to people and played with them.

In the legends and stories of sailors, there are often references to mermaids and mysterious sirens. Maybe there is some truth in their words. After all, many contemporaries believe that the amazing animals of the Siren detachment, including dugongs, manatees and sea cows, served as their prototype.

Genus Sea cows

Their second name is hydrodamalis. The genus includes only two species large mammals which are characterized by an aquatic lifestyle. The habitat was limited to the northern part of the Pacific Ocean. Animals preferred quiet and calm waters, where they would be provided with a sufficient amount of plant food, and a lot of it was required.

The sea cow is a herbivore whose main diet was algae. Actually, for a similar way of life and peaceful disposition, they received such a name by analogy with their land namesakes.

The genus includes two species: Cuesta hydrodamalis and Steller's cow. Moreover, the first, according to scientists, is the historical ancestor of the second. For the first time, hydrodamalis Cuesta was described in 1978 based on the remains found in California (USA). This species became extinct about 2 million years ago. The exact reasons are not called, from the hypothetical - cooling and the beginning of the era ice age, which led to a change in habitat, a decrease forage base etc. However, according to scientists, before the complete disappearance, this sea cow gave rise to a new and more adapted species.

Sea, or Steller's, cow

In fact, the first name is generic, and the second is specific. Also, this species is sometimes called cabbage, which is associated with the type of food. As already mentioned, the ancestors of the described animals are Cuesta hydrodamalis. Steller's cow was first discovered and described during the expedition of V. Bering. On board the ship was the only specialist with a natural science education - Georg Steller. Actually, this animal was later named after him. Once, being on the shore after a shipwreck, he noticed large objects swaying in the waves, having an oblong shape and resembling boats turned upside down. But it soon became clear that they were animals. Cabbage (sea cow) was described by G. Steller in sufficient detail, he did it on the example of a large female, sketches were drawn up, observations related to nutrition and lifestyle were recorded. Therefore, most of the later work is based on his research. The photo shows the skeleton of a sea cow.

The external structure and appearance of the cabbage are characteristic of all representatives of the Siren squad. The only significant difference is that it greatly exceeded its contemporaries in size. The body of the animals was valky and thick, and the head, relative to its proportions, was small, but mobile. The pair of limbs were flippers, short and rounded, with a horny growth at the end, often compared to a hoof. The body ended with a wide tail blade, which has a notch in the middle and is located in a horizontal plane.

It is noteworthy what integuments the animal possessed. The sea cow, according to G. Steller, had a skin resembling oak bark, it was so strong, thick and all in folds. Later, studies of the surviving remains made it possible to establish that, in terms of its performance, it resembled modern rubber. This quality was clearly protective.

The jaw apparatus had a rather primitive structure, the sea cow ground the food with the help of two horny plates (on the upper and lower jaws), and there were no teeth. The animal had an impressive size, which was one of the main factors in active fishing for it. The maximum recorded body length is 7.88 meters. It is worth noting that in a medium-sized female (about 7 m), the body circumference at the widest point was about 6 meters. Accordingly, the body weight was huge - several tons (from 4 to 10). This is the second largest (after whales) marine animal.

Behavioral features

Animals were inactive and clumsy. They spent most of their lives in the process of eating food. They swam slowly, preferred shallow water, with the help of large fins they leaned on the ground. It is believed that sea cows are monogamous and lived in families that gathered in large herds. Their diet consisted exclusively of coastal algae, namely, sea kale, hence the name.

The animals were characterized by a fairly high life expectancy (up to 90 years). There is no information about natural enemies. G. Steller in his descriptions mentioned the death of animals in winter period under the ice, as well as during a strong storm from hitting rocks. Many zoologists say that, having such a "compliant" disposition, cabbage could become the first aquatic pet.

The animal is officially considered extinct and is listed in the Black Book. The main reason is the active extermination of Steller's cows by humans. By the time this species was discovered, it was already small in number. Scientists suggest that at that time the number of cabbage was about 2-3 thousand. In this state of affairs, it was permissible to slaughter no more than 15-17 individuals per year. In reality, this figure was exceeded by almost 10 times. As a result, around 1768, the last representatives of this species disappeared from the face of the earth. The task was also simplified by the fact that the Steller's cow led a sedentary lifestyle, did not know how to dive and was not at all afraid of the approach of people. The main purpose of cabbage hunting is the extraction of meat and fat, which had high palatability, and the skins were used in the manufacture of boats.

In the media and on television, the topic is periodically raised that sometimes a sea cow is found in remote corners of the ocean. Is cabbage dead or not? Scientists will definitely answer this question in the affirmative. Is it worth believing the "eyewitnesses", this is a big question, because for some reason no one provided photos and video materials.

Related species

According to many scientists, the closest relative of cabbage from mammals living in sea waters is the dugong. Sea cow and he belong to the same family. The dugong is its only representative in modern period. It is much smaller in size, the maximum recorded body length is about 5.8 meters, and the weight is up to 600 kg. The thickness of his skin is 2.5-3 cm. The largest population of dugongs (about 10 thousand individuals) now lives in the Torres Strait and off the coast of the Great Barrier Reef.

Possessing a structure and lifestyle similar to cabbage, this animal also became an object of fishing. And now the dugong is also listed in the Red Book under the status of a vulnerable species. The sea cow was, unfortunately, eaten in the truest sense of the word. I would like to believe that at least one representative of the Dyugoniyev family will still be preserved.

Hydrodamalis gigas) - a mammal of the order of sirens exterminated by man. Discovered in 1741 by the expedition of Vitus Bering. Russian name received in honor of the naturalist Georg Steller, the expedition doctor, on whose descriptions a significant part of the information about this animal is based.

Steller's cow lived only off the coast of the Commander Islands, although modern paleontological evidence suggests that in the prehistoric era its range was noticeably wider. The predatory extermination for the sake of tasty meat that followed the discovery led to the complete disappearance of this animal by 1768.

Steller's cow was an animal of very large size. In terms of length and body weight, she probably surpassed all the others. aquatic mammals, except for cetaceans (reaching 7-8 m in length, five or more tons of weight) and its closest relative and probable ancestor - hydrodamalis Cuesta (body length more than 9 m with a probable mass of up to 10 tons). Cabbage led a sedentary lifestyle, keeping mostly near the shore; apparently she was not capable of diving. Steller's cows were fed exclusively with seaweed, primarily seaweed. The behavior of this animal was characterized by slowness, apathy and lack of fear of humans. These factors, which facilitated the production of cows by people, contributed to its rapid disappearance. The low total number of cows at the time of opening - about two thousand - also played a role.

Rare reports of sightings of sea cows in a number of areas of the Kamchatka Territory have not been confirmed. Museums all over the world preserve a significant number of skeletal remains of cabbages, including several complete skeletons, as well as pieces of their skin.

Discovery history

Sketch of a female Steller's cow, described and measured by G. Steller. It is considered the only image of a cow made from life.

For the first time people saw sea cows in November 1741 (except for hypothetical contacts with them prehistoric inhabitants Asia and North America and / or later aboriginal tribes of Siberia), when the ship of Commander Vitus Bering "Saint Peter", making an expeditionary voyage, crashed while trying to anchor off the island, later named after Bering.

Georg Steller, naturalist and physician of the expedition, was the only specialist with a natural science education who personally saw and described this species. After the shipwreck, he noticed several large oblong objects from the shore in the sea, similar from a distance to the bottoms of overturned boats, and soon realized that he saw the backs of large aquatic animals. However, the first cow was obtained by people from this expedition only at the end of their ten-month stay on the island, six weeks before sailing. Eating the meat of sea cows helped travelers a lot, supporting their strength during the time-consuming construction of a new ship.

Most of the later reports are based on Steller's work "On the Beasts of the Sea" (lat. De bestiis marinis), first published in 1751. Steller believed that he was dealing with a manatee (lat. Trichechus manatus), and in his notes he identified a sea cow with him, arguing that this is the same animal that is called “manat” in Spanish possessions in America (Spanish. manati) . The famous German zoologist E. Zimmerman described the sea cow as a new species in 1780. The now generally accepted binomial name Hydrodamalis gigas(the generic name literally means “water cow”, the specific name means “giant”) the Swedish biologist A. Ya. Retzius gave the species in 1794.

An important contribution to the study of the sea cow was made by an American zoologist of Norwegian origin, Steller's biographer Leonard Steineger, who conducted research on the Commanders in 1882-1883 and collected a large number of bones of this animal.

Appearance and structure

Appearance and structural features

Steller cow skull

The appearance of the cabbage was characteristic of all lilacs, with the exception that the Steller's cow was much larger than its relatives. The body of the animal was thick and valky. The head was very small in comparison with the size of the body, and the cow could freely move its head both sideways and up and down. The limbs were relatively short rounded flippers with a joint in the middle, ending in a horny outgrowth, which was compared with a horse's hoof. The body ended in a wide horizontal tail blade with a notch in the middle.

The skin of the Steller's cow was naked, folded and extremely thick and, according to Steller, resembled the bark of an old oak tree. Its color was from gray to dark brown, sometimes with whitish spots and stripes. One of the German researchers, who studied a preserved piece of Steller's cow skin, found that in terms of strength and elasticity it is close to the rubber of modern car tires. Perhaps this property of the skin was a protective device that saved the animal from injury from stones in the coastal zone.

The ear holes were so small that they were almost lost in the folds of the skin. The eyes were also very small, according to the descriptions of eyewitnesses - no more than those of a sheep. Soft and mobile lips were covered with vibrissae as thick as a chicken feather shaft. The upper lip was undivided. Steller's cow had no teeth at all. Cabbage frayed food with the help of two white horny plates (one on each jaw). There were, according to various sources, 6 or 7 cervical vertebrae. Judging by the skeletons found, there were about 50 vertebrae in the spine (not counting the chest).

The presence of pronounced sexual dimorphism in the Steller's cow remains unclear. However, the males were apparently several larger than females.

Steller's cow practically did not give sound signals. She usually only snorted, exhaling air, and only when injured could she make loud moaning sounds. Apparently, this animal had good hearing, as evidenced by the significant development of the inner ear. However, the cows hardly reacted at all to the noise of the boats approaching them.

The size

Steller's cow was a very large animal. Steller himself, who described the female cow in detail, estimated her body length at 295 inches (about 7.5 m). The largest documented length of a sea cow is 7.88 m. The female, 7.42 m long, had a neck and nape circumference of 204 cm, a trunk circumference at shoulder level of 3.67 m, and the largest trunk circumference in the middle at the back of the abdomen was 6.22 m , the length of the tail from the anus to the caudal lobes is 192.5 cm, the circumference of the caudal peduncle at the point of departure of the lobes is 143 cm, the distance between the ends of the caudal lobes is 199 cm. It has been suggested that the length of sea cows could have been noticeably longer, but some scientists believe that 7.9 m was already the upper limit; nevertheless, the length is also called 9-10 m. In girth, the female, measured by Steller, measured 22 feet (6.6 m).

As for the body weight, it was very significant - on the order of several tons. Various sources give varying figures: about 4 tons, 4.5-5.9 tons, up to 10 tons or from 5.4 to 11.2 tons, that is, a Steller's cow could be even heavier than an African elephant. The weight of the female, measured by Steller, was about 3.5 tons. In any case, the Steller's cow was apparently in first place in terms of weight among all mammals that led an aquatic lifestyle, with the exception of cetaceans (surpassing even such a giant as the southern elephant seal in average weight).

Behavioral Features

Most of the time, Steller's cows foraged by swimming slowly in shallow water, often using their forelimbs to support themselves on the ground. They did not dive, and their backs were constantly sticking out of the water. Seabirds often sat on the backs of cows, pecking out crustaceans (whale lice) that were attached there from the folds of skin. The cows came so close to the shore that sometimes you could reach them with your hands. Usually, the female and the male kept together with the young of the year and the young of the last year, in general, the cows usually kept in numerous herds. In the herd, the young were in the middle. The attachment of animals to each other was very strong. It is described how a male sailed for three days to a dead female lying on the shore. The cub of another female, slaughtered by industrialists, behaved in the same way. Little is known about the reproduction of cabbages. Steller wrote that sea cows are monogamous, mating apparently took place in the spring.

Steller's cows fed exclusively on seaweed, which grew in abundance in coastal waters, primarily seaweed (which is why the name "cabbage" came from). Feeding cows, plucking algae, kept their heads under water. Every 4-5 minutes they raised their heads for a new portion of air, making a sound somewhat reminiscent of a horse's snort. In places where the cows were feeding, the waves washed ashore in large quantities the lower parts of the thalli (“roots” and “stems”) of the algae they eat, as well as litter similar to horse manure. When resting, the cows lay on their backs, slowly drifting in the quiet bays. In general, the behavior of the cabbage girls was distinguished by exceptional slowness and apathy. In winter, the cows became very thin, so that the observer could count their ribs.

Grazing Steller's cows as imagined by the artist

The life expectancy of a Steller's cow, like that of its closest relative dugong, could reach ninety years. natural enemies This animal is not described, but Steller spoke of cases of cows dying under ice in winter. He also said that in a storm cabbage, if they did not have time to move away from the coast, often died from hitting stones during heavy seas.

The state of the livestock at the time of opening

area

According to some studies, the range of the Steller's cow expanded significantly during the peak of the last glaciation (about 20 thousand years ago), when the Arctic Ocean was separated from the Pacific by land located on the site of the modern Bering Strait, the so-called Beringia. The climate in the Pacific Northwest was milder than today, allowing the Steller's cow to disperse far north along the coast of Asia.

Fossil finds dating back to the late Pleistoceneconfirm the fact of the wide distribution of sirenaceae in this geographical area. The habitation of the Steller's cow in a limited area near the Commander Islands already dates back to the onset of the Holocene. Researchers do not exclude that in other places the cow disappeared in prehistoric times due to persecution by local hunting tribes. However, some American researchers believed that the range of the cow could have been reduced even without the participation of primitive hunters. In their opinion, by the time of its discovery, the Steller's cow was already on the verge of extinction due to natural causes.

Data cited by experts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) argue that in the 18th century the Steller's cow most likely also lived near the western Aleutian Islands, although Soviet sources are more early years pointed out that data on the habitation of cows in places outside their known area are based only on the finds of their corpses washed up by the sea. In the 1960s and 70s, individual bones of the Steller's cow were also found in Japan and California. The only known find of relatively complete cabbage skeletons outside its known range was made in 1969 on Amchitka Island (Aleutian Ridge); the age of the three skeletons found there was estimated at 125-130 thousand years. In 1971, information appeared about the discovery of the left rib of a sea cow during excavations of an Eskimo camp of the 17th century in Alaska in the Noatak River basin. It was concluded that in the late Pleistocene, the Steller's cow was widespread around the Aleutian Islands and the coast of Alaska, while the climate of this area was quite warm. It is noteworthy that the cow, the skeleton of which was found on the island of Amchitka, despite its young age, was not inferior in size to adult specimens from the Commander Islands.

Ecological connections of the Steller's cow

The role of the Steller's cow in the ecological balance was significant, primarily due to the consumption of a significant amount of algae by this animal. In places where sea cows ate algae, the number of sea urchins, which form the basis of the diet of sea otters, increased. It is possible that due to the decrease in the number of algae, underwater hunting for Steller's cormorant fish was also facilitated (therefore, it is possible that the disappearance of the Steller's cow indirectly served as one of the main reasons for the extinction of this bird). It is noted that the prehistoric range of the Steller's cow coincided with the range of the sea otter. In general, experts believe that the ecological relationship between the Steller's cow and the sea otter was significant. The extermination of sea otters near the Commander by industrialists could become an additional factor in the extinction of the cabbage fish.

When the sea cows disappeared, large algae formed continuous thickets in the coastal strip of the Commander Islands. The result of this was the stagnation of coastal waters, their rapid "bloom" and the so-called red tides, named because of the red color of the water due to the intensive reproduction of unicellular algae - dinoflagellates. toxins (some of which stronger than poison curare), produced by certain species of dinoflagellates, can accumulate in the body of mollusks and other invertebrates, reaching fish, sea otters and sea birds and lead to their death.

Relationship with other siren

Steller cow - typical representative siren. Her earliest known ancestor was, apparently, a dugong-like Miocene sea cow Dusisiren jordani, whose fossil remains are described in California. The study of mitochondrial DNA showed that the evolutionary divergence of sea cows and dugongs occurred no later than 22 million years ago. The sea cow can be considered the direct ancestor of the cabbage Hydrodamalis cuestae, which lived in the late Miocene, about 5 million years ago.

nearest modern relative the Steller's cow is most likely a dugong. Steller's cow is assigned to the same family dugong, however, it stands out in a separate genus Hydrodamalis.

extermination

Slaughter of Steller cows by humans

Industrialists who came to the Commander Islands, who hunted sea otters there, and researchers hunted Steller cows for their meat. Slaughtering cabbage was a simple matter - these lethargic and inactive, unable to dive, animals could not get away from the people chasing them on boats. A harpooned cow, however, often showed such fury and strength that hunters sought to swim away from her. According to Steller,

In the usual way catching Steller cows was prey with a hand harpoon. Sometimes they were killed with the use of firearms. The method of catching Steller cows was described in great detail by Steller:

We caught them using a large iron hook, the tip of which resembled the arm of an anchor; we attached its other end with an iron ring to a very long and strong rope, which was dragged from the shore by thirty people ... Having harpooned a sea cow, the sailors tried to immediately sail to the side so that the wounded animal would not overturn or break their boat with blows from a powerful tail . After that, the people who remained on the shore began to pull the rope and persistently drag the animal, which was desperately resisting, to the shore. The people in the boat, meanwhile, urged the animal on with another rope and exhausted it with constant blows, until, exhausted and completely motionless, it was pulled ashore, where it was already struck with bayonets, knives and other weapons. Sometimes large pieces were cut off from a living animal and, resisting, it hit the ground with such force with its tail and fins that pieces of skin even fell off the body ... From the wounds inflicted in the back of the body, blood flowed in a stream. When the wounded animal was under water, the blood did not gush out, but as soon as he stuck his head out to grab a breath of air, the flow of blood resumed with the same force ...

With this method of fishing, only a part of the cows fell into the hands of people, the rest died in the sea from wounds - according to some estimates, the hunters received only one out of five harpooned cabbages.

From 1743 to 1763, several parties of fur manufacturers with a total number of up to fifty people wintered on the Commander Islands. They all hunted sea cows for meat. By 1754, sea cows were completely exterminated off Copper Island. It is believed that the last cow off Bering Island was killed by an industrialist named Popov in 1768. In the same year, researcher Martin Sauer made an entry in his journal about their total absence at this island.

There is information that one of the members of the Bering expedition, a certain Yakovlev, claimed that in 1755 the leadership of the settlement on about. Bering issued a decree banning the hunting of sea cows. However, by that time, the local population was already, obviously, almost completely destroyed.

Eating

The main purpose of hunting the Steller's cow was the extraction of meat. One of the members of the Bering expedition said that up to three tons of meat could be obtained from a slaughtered cow. It is known that the meat of one cow was enough to feed thirty-three people for a month. Slaughtered cows were consumed not only by wintering parties, they were also usually taken with them as provisions by sailing ships. The meat of sea cows was, according to the reviews of those who tried it, of excellent taste. Steller wrote:

Fat is not oily, but harsh, white as snow; if it lies for a few days in the sun, it becomes pleasantly yellow, like the best Dutch butter. Ghee, it tastes better than the best beef tallow; ... exceptionally pleasant smelling and highly nutritious, so that we drank it in cups without feeling any revulsion. The tail is composed almost exclusively of fat. The meat of the cubs resembles a pig, the meat of adults resembles veal; it is cooked for half an hour and at the same time it swells so much that it almost doubles in volume. The meat of old animals is indistinguishable from beef ... How healthy it is for nutrition, we soon experienced, especially those who suffered from the effects of scurvy.

The entrails of the Steller's cow (heart, liver, kidneys) did not differ in good palatability, were tough and, as Steller wrote, were usually thrown away. The fat rendered from subcutaneous fat was not only used for food, but was also used for lighting. Poured into a lamp, it burned without odor or soot. The strong and thick skin of the cabbage was used to make boats.

Preserved skeletons and bones

The bone remains of Steller's cows have been studied quite fully. Their bones are not uncommon, since people still come across on the Commander Islands. Museums around the world have a significant number of bones and skeletons of this animal - according to some reports, fifty-nine world museums have such exhibits. Several remnants of the skin of a sea cow are also preserved. Models of a Steller's cow, reconstructed from a high degree accuracy, are available in many museums. Among this number of exhibits there are several well-preserved skeletons:

Samples were taken from bones stored in museums for sequencing of the Steller's cow genome.

former USSR

Zoological Museum of Moscow University - skeleton collected in 1837.
in St. Petersburg - an incomplete skeleton of an individual 6.87 m long (found in 1855).
Paleontological Museum in Kyiv - complete skeleton (-1882).
Zoological Museum at the National Science and Natural History Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv - a complete skeleton (1879-1882).
The Khabarovsk Museum of Local Lore - an almost complete skeleton of one specimen, to which are added several bones of another specimen (1897-1898).
Kharkov Museum of Nature - a complete composite skeleton (1879-1882, some elements added in the 1970s).
Zoological Museum named after Benedikt Dybowski in Lviv - complete skeleton (1879-1882).
The Aleutian Museum of Local Lore in the village of Nikolsky on Bering Island - an almost complete skeleton of a cub (discovered in 1986).
Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore - two incomplete skeletons, totaling fifty-six bones (1879).

USA

Washington, National Museum of Natural History - composite skeleton. Collected in 1883 by Steineger.
UC Berkeley - Nearly complete skeleton composed of the bones of several individuals (acquired in 1904).
Museum of Comparative Zoology (part of the Harvard Museum of Natural History at Harvard University in Massachusetts - an almost complete composite skeleton (probably from bones collected by Steineger).

Europe

London Natural History Museum - a complete skeleton composed of the bones of two individuals (acquired in 1882).
The Edinburgh Museum is an almost complete composite skeleton (found on Medny Island by the Russian scientist D.F. Sinitsyn, brought to the UK in 1897).
National Museum of Natural History in Paris - two almost complete composite skeletons (acquired in 1898).
The Natural History Museum in Vienna - an almost complete composite skeleton (1897).
The Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm - an incomplete skeleton (from bones collected in 1879 by the expedition of A. Nordenskiöld on the barque Vega).
The Natural History Museum at the University of Helsinki is a complete skeleton of a 5.3 m long juvenile that died of natural causes. Compiled from bones collected in 1861 by the Chief Ruler of the Russian-American Company (actually the governor of Russian Alaska) I. V. Furugelm.

The possibility of preservation to the present day

Steller's cow is declared extinct; the status of its population according to the International Red Book is an extinct species (eng. Extinct). However, sometimes there is an opinion that for some time after the 1760s, sea cows occasionally came across natives of the Russian Far East. So, in 1834, two Russian-Aleut Creoles claimed that on the coast of Bering Island they saw “a skinny animal with a cone-shaped body, small forelimbs, which breathed through the mouth and had no hind fins.” Such reports, according to some researchers, were quite frequent in the 19th century.

Several testimonies that have remained unconfirmed even date back to the 20th century. In 1962, members of a Soviet whaler's team allegedly observed a group of six animals in the Gulf of Anadyr, the description of which was similar to that of a Steller's cow. In 1966, a note on the observation of cabbage was published in the newspaper Kamchatsky Komsomolets. In 1976, the editors of the magazine "Around the World" received a letter from the Kamchatka meteorologist Yu. V. Koev, who said that he had seen cabbage at Cape Lopatka:

I can say that in August 1976, in the area of Cape Lopatka, I saw a Steller's cow. What allows me to make such a statement? whales, killer whales, seals, sea lions, fur seals, sea otters and walruses saw repeatedly. This animal is not like any of the above. The length is about five meters. It swam very slowly in shallow water. As if rolling like a wave. First, a head with a characteristic growth appeared, then a massive body and then a tail. Yes, yes, which attracted my attention (by the way, there is a witness). Because when a seal or a walrus swims like this, their hind legs are pressed to each other, and it is clear that these are flippers, and this one had a tail like a whale's. It seems ... that each time she emerged with her stomach up, slowly rolling her body. And she put her tail like a whale "butterfly" when the whale goes into the depths ...

None of these observations have been confirmed. However, some enthusiasts and cryptozoologists, even now, believe it is likely that a small population of Steller cows exists in remote and inaccessible areas of the Kamchatka Territory. There is a discussion among amateurs about the possibility of cloning cabbage using biological material obtained from preserved skin and bone samples. If the Steller's cow survived to the modern era, then, as many zoologists write, with its harmless disposition, it could become the first marine pet.

Steller's cow in culture

Probably the most famous case the mention of the Steller's cow in the works of classical literature is its image in Rudyard Kipling's story "White Cat". In this work the main character, white fur seal, meets with a herd of sea cows that survived in the bay of the Bering Sea, inaccessible to people:

The creatures really had a strange appearance and did not look like a whale, or a shark, or a walrus, or a seal, or a beluga whale, or a seal, or a stingray, or an octopus, or a cuttlefish. They had a fusiform body, twenty or thirty feet long, and instead of hind flippers, a flat tail, like a shovel of wet skin. They had the most ridiculously shaped head imaginable, and when they stopped eating they began to swing on their tail, bowing ceremoniously in all directions and waving their front flippers, like a fat man in a restaurant calling a waiter.

Notes

Life of animals. Volume 7. Mammals / ed. Sokolova V. E. (chief ed.), Gilyarov M. S., Polyansky Yu. I. and others - 2nd ed. - M.: Enlightenment, 1989. - S. 403. - 558 p. - ISBN 5-09-001434-5
Sokolov V. E. Systematics of mammals. Volume 3 - M.: high school, 1979. - S. 332. - 528 p.
Sokolov V. E. Five-language dictionary of animal names. Mammals. Latin, Russian, English, German, French. / under the general editorship of acad. V. E. Sokolova. - M.: Rus. yaz., 1984. - S. 121. - 10,000 copies.
Animal life / ed. S. P. Naumov and A. P. Kuzyakin.. - M.: "Enlightenment", 1971. - V. 6 (mammals). - S. 409-410. - 628 p. - 300,000 copies.

Steller's cow, sea cow, or cabbage butterfly (Hydrodamalis gigas) was discovered as a species in 1741 by the expedition of Vitus Bering. Belongs to the mammals of the order of sirens.

The name was given in honor of the naturalist Georg Steller (expedition doctor V. Bering), who first described this animal.

Steller's cow lived only off the coast of the Commander Islands, Predatory exterminated for meat, and completely disappeared by 1768. In just 27 years….

Modern paleontological data show that in the prehistoric era, its range was noticeably wider.

Commander Islands and the nearest part of Kamchatka

Although the Steller's cow is recognized as extinct, nevertheless, there is unverified evidence that even after the 1760s, sea cows occasionally came across to the natives of the Russian Far East.

So, in 1834, two hunters claimed that on the coast of Bering Island they saw “a lean animal with a cone-shaped body, small forelimbs, which breathed through the mouth and had no hind fins.” And such messages, according to some researchers, were quite frequent in the 19th century.

There are several testimonies, also left unconfirmed, that the Steller's cow was seen in the 20th century. So, in 1962, members of the team of a Soviet whaler allegedly observed in the Gulf of Anadyr a group of six animals, the description of which was similar to the appearance of a Steller's cow.

In 1966, a note about the observation of a Steller's cow was even published in the newspaper Kamchatsky Komsomolets.

And in 1976, the editors of the magazine "Around the World" received a letter from the Kamchatka meteorologist Yu. V. Koev, who said that he had seen a Steller's cow near Cape Lopatka. He wrote that "... I can say that in August 1976, in the area of Cape Lopatka, I saw a Steller's cow. What allows me to make such a statement? Whales, killer whales, seals, sea lions, fur seals, sea otters and walruses have been seen many times. This animal is not like any of the above. The length is about five meters. It swam very slowly in shallow water. As if rolling like a wave. First, a head with a characteristic growth appeared, then a massive body and then a tail. Yes, yes, which attracted my attention (by the way, there is a witness). Because when a seal or a walrus swims like this, their hind legs are pressed to each other, and it is clear that these are flippers, and this one had a tail like a whale's. It seems ... that each time she emerged with her stomach up, slowly rolling her body. And she put her tail like a whale "butterfly" when the whale goes into the depths ... ".

However, none of the sightings have been confirmed. Some enthusiasts and cryptozoologists suggest that there is still a small population of Steller cows in remote and hard-to-reach areas of the Kamchatka Territory.

Steller's cow was very large. In terms of length and body weight, it probably surpassed all other aquatic mammals, except for cetaceans, reaching seven to eight meters in length, and weighing five or more tons! She was even larger than her closest relative and probable ancestor - the extinct hydrodamalis cuesta (Hydrodamalis cuestae) (body length more than nine meters with a probable mass of up to ten tons).

Steller's cow led a sedentary life, keeping mostly near the shore, but was probably not able to dive. This animal fed exclusively on seaweed, and above all, sea kale, for which it received its second name - "cabbage".

Steller's cow was a very slow and apathetic animal, and was not afraid of humans. It was these factors that contributed to its rapid disappearance. In addition, the overall low population at the time of discovery, about 2,000, also played a role. Apparently, she had no natural enemies.

Museums around the world preserve a significant number of skeletal remains of the Steller's cow, including several complete skeletons, as well as pieces of their skin.

Sketch of a female Steller's cow described and measured G. Steller.
It is considered the only image of a cow made from life.

Steller's sea cow. Drawing by Sven Waxel

As already mentioned, for the first time Europeans saw Steller cows in November 1741 (except for hypothetical contacts with them by prehistoric inhabitants of Asia and North America, as well as later aboriginal tribes of Siberia), when the ship of Commander Vitus Bering "Saint Peter" crashed while trying to anchor off the island, later named after Bering.

Georg Steller, naturalist and physician of the expedition, was the only specialist with a natural science education who personally saw and described this extinct species.

After the shipwreck, he noticed from the shore in the sea several large oblong objects, similar from afar to the bottoms of overturned boats, and soon realized that he had seen the backs of large aquatic animals.

However, the first cow was obtained by people from this expedition only at the end of their 10-month stay on the island, 6 weeks before departure. Eating the meat of sea cows greatly helped travelers, supporting their strength during the laborious construction of a new ship.

Most of the later messages are based on the work of G. Steller "On the animals of the sea" ( De bestiis marinis), first published in 1751.

Georg Steller believed he saw a manatee ( Trichechus manatus), and in his notes he identified the Steller's cow with him, arguing that this is an animal that in the Spanish possessions in America is called "manat" ( manati).

As the new kind Steller's cow was described only in 1780 by the German zoologist E. Zimmerman.

Commonly recognized name Hydrodamalis gigas(the generic name literally means “water cow”, the specific name means “giant”) was given by the Swedish biologist A. Ya. Retzius in 1794.

An important contribution to the study of the Steller's cow was made by the American zoologist, biographer of G. Steller, Leonard Steineger, who conducted research on Commanders in 1882-1883 and collected a large number of bones of this animal.

The appearance of the Steller's cow is characteristic of all sirenians, with the exception that it was much larger than its relatives.

The body of the animal was thick and rolled, the head, in comparison with the size of the body, was very small, and the animal could freely move its head both sideways and up and down.

The limbs were relatively short rounded flippers with a joint in the middle, ending in a horny outgrowth, which was compared with a horse's hoof. The body ended in a wide horizontal tail blade with a notch in the middle.

The skin of the Steller's cow was naked, folded and extremely thick, in the words of G. Steller, it resembled the bark of an old oak. Skin color was gray to dark brown, sometimes with whitish spots and stripes.

One of the German researchers, who studied a preserved piece of Steller's cow skin, found that in terms of strength and elasticity it is close to the rubber of modern car tires! Perhaps this property of the skin was a protective device that saved the animal from injury from stones in the coastal zone.

The ear holes were so small that they were almost lost in the folds of the skin. The eyes were also very small, according to the descriptions of eyewitnesses - no more than those of a sheep. But the Steller's cow had no teeth; she ground her food with the help of two white horn plates (one on each jaw). The males were apparently somewhat larger than the females.

Steller's cow practically did not give sound signals. She usually only snorted, exhaling air, and only when injured could she make loud moaning sounds. Apparently, this animal had good hearing, as evidenced by the significant development of the inner ear. However, the Steller's cows hardly reacted at all to the noise of the boats approaching them.

The largest documented length of a sea cow is 7.88 meters.

As for body weight, it was very significant - about several tons, according to various sources from 4 to 11 tons, which is even heavier African elephant! Those. the Steller's cow by weight was apparently in first place among all mammals leading an aquatic lifestyle, with the exception of cetaceans (surpassing even such a giant as the southern elephant seal in average weight).

Most of the time Steller's cows foraged by swimming slowly in shallow water, often using their forelimbs to support themselves on the ground. They did not dive, and their backs were constantly sticking out of the water. Seabirds often sat on the backs of cows, pecking out crustaceans (whale lice) that were attached there from the folds of skin.

Usually, the female and the male kept together with the young of the year and the young of the last year, but in general, the cows usually "grazed" in numerous herds.

The life expectancy of a Steller's cow, like that of its closest relative, the dugong, could reach 90 years. The natural enemies of this animal are not described, but Steller spoke of cases of cows dying under the ice in winter. He also said that in a storm cabbage, if they did not have time to move away from the coast, often died from hitting stones during heavy seas.

The dugong is the closest relative of the Steller's cow.

Calculations made in the 1880s by Steineger indicate that the population of Steller's cows in their entire range at the time of the discovery of this species hardly exceeded 1500-2000 individuals.

In 2006, an assessment was made of all the factors that could lead to the rapid disappearance of Steller cows. The results showed that with an initial population of 2000 individuals, predatory hunting alone would have been more than enough to exterminate within two to three decades.

According to some studies, the range of the Steller's cow expanded significantly during the peak of the last glaciation (about 20 thousand years ago), when the Northern Arctic Ocean was separated from the Pacific by land, located on the site of the modern Bering Strait, Beringia. The climate in the Pacific Northwest was milder than today, which allowed the Steller's cow to settle far north along the coast of Asia.

Fossil finds dating back to the late Pleistocene confirm the wide distribution of the Sirenidae order in this geographical area.

In the 1960s and 70s, individual bones of the Steller's cow were also found in Japan and California. The only known find of relatively complete skeletons outside its known range was made in 1969 on the island of Amchitka (Aleutian ridge), the age of three skeletons found there was estimated at 125-130 thousand years.

The habitat of the Steller's cow in a limited range near the Commander Islands dates back to the onset of the Holocene. Researchers do not exclude that in other places the cow disappeared in prehistoric times due to persecution by local hunting tribes. However, some American researchers believed that the range of the cow could have been reduced even without the participation of primitive hunters. In their opinion, the Steller's cow was already on the verge of extinction due to natural causes by the time of its discovery.

Industrialists who came to the Commander Islands, who hunted sea otters there, and researchers hunted Steller cows for their meat.

The usual way to catch Steller cows was to harvest with a hand harpoon. Sometimes they were killed with the use of firearms. The method of catching Steller cows was described in great detail by Steller:

“... We caught them using a large iron hook, the tip of which resembled an anchor paw; we attached its other end with an iron ring to a very long and strong rope, which was dragged from the shore by thirty people ... Having harpooned a sea cow, the sailors tried to immediately sail to the side so that the wounded animal would not overturn or break their boat with blows of a powerful tail. After that, the people who remained on the shore began to pull the rope and persistently drag the animal, which was desperately resisting, to the shore. The people in the boat, meanwhile, urged the animal on with another rope and exhausted it with constant blows, until, exhausted and completely motionless, it was pulled ashore, where it was already struck with bayonets, knives and other weapons. Sometimes large pieces were cut off from a living animal, and, resisting, it hit the ground with such force with its tail and fins that pieces of skin even fell off the body ... From the wounds inflicted in the back of the body, blood flowed in a stream. When the wounded animal was under water, the blood did not gush out, but as soon as he stuck his head out to grab a breath of air, the flow of blood resumed with the same force ... "

With this method of fishing, only a part of the cows fell into the hands of people, the rest died in the sea from wounds, according to some estimates, the hunters received only one out of five harpooned animals.

From 1743 to 1763, several parties of industrialists with a total number of up to 50 people wintered on the Commander Islands. They all mercilessly slaughtered sea cows for meat.

By 1754, sea cows were completely exterminated off about. Copper. It is believed that the last cow from Fr. Bering was killed by an industrialist named Popov in 1768. In the same year, the explorer Martin Sauer made an entry in his journal about their complete absence from this island.

There is information that one of the members of the Bering expedition, a certain Yakovlev, claimed that in 1755 the leadership of the settlement on about. Bering issued a decree banning the hunting of sea cows. However, by that time the local population was almost completely exterminated.

The main purpose of hunting the Steller's cow was the extraction of meat. One of the members of the Bering expedition said that up to 3 tons of meat could be obtained from a slaughtered cow, and the meat of one cow was enough to feed 33 people for a month. The fat rendered from subcutaneous fat was not only used for food, but was also used for lighting. Poured into a lamp, it burned without smell and soot. The strong and thick skin of the cabbage was used to make boats.

The role of the Steller's cow in the ecological balance of the sea was very significant, primarily due to the consumption of a significant amount of algae by this animal. In those places where sea cows ate algae, the number increased sea urchins, which form the basis of the nutrition of sea otters. It is noted that the prehistoric range of the Steller's cow coincided with the range of the sea otter. In general, experts believe that the ecological relationship between the Steller's cow and the sea otter was significant.

When the sea cows disappeared, large algae formed continuous thickets in the coastal strip of the Commander Islands. The result of this was the stagnation of coastal waters, their rapid "bloom" and the so-called "red tides", named because of the red color of the water due to intensive reproduction. unicellular algae - dinoflagellates. Toxins (some of which are stronger than curare poison!), Produced by certain species of dinoflagellates, can accumulate in the body of mollusks and other invertebrates, reaching fish, sea otters and seabirds along the trophic chain, and lead to their death.

Several remnants of the skin of a sea cow are also preserved. Models of a Steller's cow, reconstructed with a high degree of accuracy, are available in many museums. Among this number of exhibits there are several well-preserved skeletons.

Skeleton of a Steller's cow in the Zoological Museum named after Benedikt Dibowski in Lviv

Steller's cow skeletons are in the Zoological Museum of Moscow University, it was collected in 1837, the Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (an incomplete skeleton of an individual 6.87 meters long, found in 1855), the Paleontological Museum in Kyiv (a complete skeleton, collected in 1879 -1882), Khabarovsk local history museum(almost complete skeleton), Kharkov Museum of Nature (complete composite skeleton 1879-1882, some elements added in the 1970s), in the Aleutian Museum of Local Lore in the village of Nikolskoye on Bering Island - an almost complete skeleton of a cub (discovered in 1986), Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore (two incomplete skeletons), in the USA, in Washington, at the National Museum of Natural History (a composite skeleton collected in 1883 by Steineger, at the University of California at Berkeley - an almost complete skeleton composed of the bones of several individuals (acquired in 1904 ), in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in Massachusetts (an almost complete composite skeleton, probably assembled by Steineger), the Natural History Museum in London (a complete skeleton composed of the bones of two individuals), in the Museum of Edinburgh (almost a complete composite skeleton found on . Copper by Russian scientist D.F. Sinitsyn, delivered to Great Britain in 1897), in the National Museum of Natural History in Paris the same (two almost complete composite skeletons, acquired in 1898), at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna (almost complete composite skeleton, 1897), at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm (incomplete skeleton from bones collected in 1879 by the expedition of A. Nordenskiöld on the barque "Vega"), in the Museum of Natural History at the University of Helsinki (a complete skeleton of a young individual 5.3 meters long, composed of bones collected in 1861 by the Chief Ruler of the Russian-American Company (Governor of Russian Alaska) I. V. Furugelm.

Skeleton of a Steller's cow at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris

Steller's cow skeleton in the Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.

There is a discussion among cryptozoologists about the possibility of cloning cabbage using biological material obtained from preserved skin and bone samples.

And if the Steller's cow survived to the modern era, then, as many zoologists write, with its harmless disposition, it could become the first marine pet.

List of used literature

Grzimek B. Sirens: "Sea cows" // "Chemistry and Life", No. 11, 1981

The Case of the Steller's Cow // Around the World, No. 10, 1991

Animal Life // Ed. S. P. Naumova and A. P. Kuzyakina M .: "Enlightenment", 1971.

Life of animals. Volume 7. Mammals // Ed. Sokolova V.E., Gilyarov M.S., Polyansky Yu.I. etc. M.: Education, 1989.

Kalyakin V.N. Sea (steller's) cow, cabbage (cabbage). Animal world.

Sokolov V.E. Systematics of mammals. Volume 3

Skeleton of Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas). Museums of Russia (2001-2010).

There are two families in the flock of sirens, dugongs and manatees, two modern genera and four species. Sirens are marine animals that live in the warm coastal waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. They feed on algae, grass, various other aquatic plants and silt. They never come ashore, they are born and die in the water.
In external appearance, sirens do not quite look like seals, but they do not have hind flippers, only front ones, but they have a tail fin: rounded (in manats) or with a small notch (in dugongs) its flippers are located, not vertically, like fish, but horizontally like whales. The skeleton of the hind limbs is almost completely changed. Only two or four bones remained of the sacrum. The skin is thick, up to five centimeters, folded, almost hairless, only sparse bristles are scattered on it.
There are no fangs (there were some extinct species), the upper incisors are not very similar to fangs (up to 20 centimeters long), only in male dugongs. There are up to ten molars in each half of the jaw, upper and lower, and usually only three in dugongs. As with elephants, as they wear, the front ones fall out, and new ones grow in the back. Females have a pair of nipples on their breasts, like elephants. These and other morphological features, especially pronounced in extinct sirens, indicate their common origin with elephants from ancient artiodactyl animals, in memory of which some manatees still wear rudimentary “nails” on their front flippers.
Sirens. Once upon a time, the Phoenicians had the supreme god Dagon - a bearded man with a crown on his head and a fish tail instead of legs. And in Ancient Greece young siren maidens lived, lured and lulled travelers with their beauty and singing, then died. In even more ancient times, the ancestors of sea cows left the land and went to the sea. But of the twenty genera of sirens, only three survived to the appearance of man: one of them - the Steller's cow - has already been destroyed. Stayed in the Pacific Indian Oceans dugong, and in the Atlantic - manatee (American, Amazonian and African) - the only herbivores today marine mammals.

Mermaid cows live in family couples: mom, dad and baby. Their life proceeds measuredly and leisurely: a hearty lunch, smoothly turning into dinner, warm sea baths and sweet dream until the next lunch. Everyone would have a good life, if not for a person. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear for what reason, people decided that the fat, meat and “tears” of the dugong (fatty lubricant that flows into the corners of the eyes when the caught animal is pulled ashore) are very healing and have medicinal properties for a variety of ailments. Therefore, dugongs are hunted everywhere - with spears and nets, now there are very few of them left.
From the time of the discovery of the Steller's cow to the day when it disappeared from the face of the earth, too little time has passed. In 1741, the expedition of the famous explorer Vitus Bering took place. Unfortunately, during the trip, the commander died, and his team was forced to stay on the Commander Islands for a long time after the shipwreck. The expedition included a young naturalist Georg Steller. During the study of the island on which they fell, the scientist noticed something strange not far from the coast: there, among sea waves some gigantic creatures swayed smoothly, which in their appearance resembled either wet stones or sunken boats. The animals swam slowly near the shore and periodically dived, raising clouds of spray.
Then the naturalist did not have the opportunity to study new animals more closely. People had more important tasks: they needed to survive in the harsh northern conditions, winter was approaching, and it was necessary to prepare for it, weakened sailors were overcome by numerous diseases. The next meeting with unknown creatures took place only six months later. The sailors needed to replenish their supplies of ammunition, and they decided to hunt these animals. Of course, the beast could turn out to be a predator and people themselves would become a desirable dinner, but the situation was so desperate that there was nothing else for them to do. The hunters were lucky - formidable-looking animals turned out to be clumsy and completely peaceful.

Having received harpoons and hooks, the sailors attacked terrible monsters. When one of them was pulled out onto land and carefully examined, it became clear that this was a completely new and unknown creature to science. The strange prey looks like a seal and a whale at the same time. Steller drew attention to the fact that the animal was very reminiscent of manatees, only its size was twice as large. Nobody has ever met such a giant among sea cows.
Fortunately, despite being busy and very tired, Steller was able to describe in detail the unknown creature in his diary, talk about his behavior and habits. It is only thanks to him that science now knows the cabbage sea cow (another name for the Steller's cow) quite a lot. Apart from Steller, none of the biologists had time to see her.
According to the description of the naturalist, cows are covered with very thick and strong skin, black, hairless and bumpy. The cabbage head is small, the eyes are small, completely drowned in the folds of the skin, there are no ears, instead of them there are only small holes that are closed by a skin fold when the animal is immersed in water. The body tapers to the head and tail, the tail is somewhat reminiscent of a whale.
C teller writes that often cabbages could be found in shallow water, where the water is well warmed by the sun, and the bottom is covered with lush thickets of seaweed. Animals grazed large groups, were divided into married couples with cubs, but all swam next to each other. During winter storms, the animals had a very difficult time, the grass became less, and strong storms often maimed cows and threw their bodies ashore.
Sea giants, to their misfortune, were very gullible and often allowed people very close.
When they swam near the shore, birds constantly sat on their backs, collecting every little thing that settled on the cabbage skin. During feeding, the cows could hold their breath for a long time and appeared only after 10-15 minutes to catch their breath noisily. After a hearty dinner, they would leave not far from the shore and fall asleep - it seemed that people did not bother them at all.
Sailors regularly hunted strange animals: their meat turned out to be tender and tasty. It was difficult for a peaceful creature to protect itself from an attack, but still the tribesmen never left their own in trouble. The whole series tried to save the unfortunate victim, and sometimes they succeeded. Particularly striking is the fidelity with which the male followed his captured girlfriend: even when she was already dead on the shore, he did not immediately leave her.
For quite a long time, having suffered a shipwreck, the expedition was on a small island, but nevertheless, at the cost of heroic efforts, people were able to return home. Moreover, they returned victorious, they managed to bring not only maps of new lands, but also a large load of very expensive and rare furs. Having learned about this, many enterprising merchants decided to travel to those parts where you can meet different animals that have not yet learned to be afraid of humans. At the same time, the ruthless extermination of sea cows began. Hunting expeditions, one after another, came to the shores of the Commander Islands, and the cabbages turned out to be a pleasant surprise for them. After all, now you can not spend a lot of time hunting - one killed sea giant could provide ten people with meat for a week.

For years, the cabbage hunt continued. After 27 years since the discovery, the last cow was eaten. According to old sources, this happened in 1768. A whole species of living creatures was simply eaten by careless people in a little more than a quarter of a century. In memory of the rest of humanity, as a bitter reproach, there were a few skeletons, dry skin and pencil sketches of living cabbage. It would seem that this is the end sad story human greed and stupidity. But there is hope that the story may have a completely different ending.
More than a hundred years have passed since the expedition of Commander Bering took place, and in 1879 scientists learned a completely incredible thing: the inhabitants of Bering Island claimed that they met amazing animals while fishing. From their descriptions, the researchers realized that we are talking about the Steller's cow, various statements about the meeting with extinct animals periodically appear in the newspapers. Many of them are simply unbelievable. For example, in 1962, during a scientific expedition, Russian scientists noticed huge black animals swimming off the coast of Kamchatka, which occurred either on walruses or dolphins, only of enormous size.
A few years later, Kamchatka fishermen told local naturalists that they had seen amazing animals off the coast of one island, and gave them detailed description. When they were shown a drawing of a Steller's cow, they immediately recognized it. The scientists could not believe that the cabbages were still found somewhere, but the sailors had no reason to deceive. scientific world divided into two camps. Some considered all the evidence a lie and a hoax, others stated that the possibility of the existence of Steller's cows is not excluded even today - the ocean is large, and they could well survive somewhere in the labyrinth of the Commander Islands. We can only hope that strange and interesting marine mammals will still meet people in the sea, and the surf will again make noise, and the waves will stroke the backs of good-natured cabbages.