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Paleontologist Leaves His Mark On Prehistoric Mini Manatee

Tribune photo by ROBERT BURKE

Frank Garcia, longtime local paleontologist, shows off fossilized rib and spine bones from a prehistoric pigmy sea cow now called Nanosiren garciae, named after him.

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By SUSAN M. GREEN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 28, 2008

Updated: 06/28/2008 12:14 am

RUSKIN - Local paleontologist Frank Garcia celebrated another feather in his cap Friday: A miniature sea cow that swam the seas of Central Florida 5 million years ago will bear his name in the history books.

The critter, which Garcia unearthed in fossil fragments in Hillsborough and Polk County phosphate mines during the past three decades, was christened Nanosiren garciae by a Smithsonian Institution research associate, Daryl Domning. Garcia calls it a pygmy sea cow. In an article for the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology released this month, Domning discusses evidence of the creature, which was about half the size of today's West Indian manatee.

Domning said by telephone Friday the journal is peer-reviewed, and the name will be accepted by scientists all over the world.

Domning, an anatomy professor at Howard University, and Garcia said the announcement has been expected for years, but they were waiting to amass enough evidence of the animal's existence for the scientific community.

It's the second prehistoric namesake for Garcia, who made a name for himself as a fossil hunter when he discovered a huge cache of fossils in the shell pits of Ruskin in the early 1980s.

"I had an antelope named after me in 1972," said Garcia, who runs Paleo Preserve at Hillsborough County's Camp Bayou.

The newest christening is sweeter, Garcia said.

"This is my favorite because I put so much work into it," he said.

Garcia said he discovered the first of thousands of bones from the miniature dugong, a relative of today's manatee, in the late 1960s or early 1970s in phosphate mines now owned by Mosaic. He kept collecting them through the 1990s and shipped most of them to the Smithsonian Institution, but there were never enough to construct a full skeleton.

The fossils date to the early Pliocene period, Domning said.

Unlike modern manatees and dugongs, the Nanosiren had tusks to scoop up vegetation, Garcia said.

Around the time it disappeared from the Earth, Domning said, there was a dramatic shift in sea currents that may have destroyed its food source. Garcia has other theories. He noted that whopper predators like Megalodon sharks and giant crocodiles swam in the same waters. He said he found teeth from both in the same pits where the little sea cow left traces.

"They could have ate it like an Oreo cookie," Garcia said.

Reporter Susan M. Green can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or sgreen@tampatrib.com.

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