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RHYTINA

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 281 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RHYTINA , a name applied to the See also:

northern See also:sea-cow (Rhytina gigas, or stelleri), a gigantic relative of the See also:manati and See also:dugong, which formerly inhabited See also:Bering and See also:Copper Islands, in the See also:North Pacific, where it was discovered during Bering's voyage in 1741, and subsequently described by Steller, who accompanied that expedition as a naturalist. Bering's See also:half-starved sailors soon reduced the See also:numbers of these comparatively helpless creatures; and it was not See also:long after—probably about the See also:year 1768—that the See also:species, which was the See also:sole representative of its genus, became completely exterminated. The Rhytina was the largest member of the See also:order Sirenia, attaining a length of nearly twenty feet; and had a very thick, rugged, bark-like skin. The jaws, which are See also:bent downwards to a moderate extent, are unprovided with See also:teeth, but in See also:life carried ridged horny plates. The tail was very deeply forked; and the flippers were See also:short and truncated, lacking apparently the terminal See also:joints of the digits. When first discovered., this Sirenian was extremely numerous in the bays of Bering See also:Island, where it browsed upon the abundant sea-tangle. Its extirpation is due to the See also:Russian sailors and traders who visited the island in pursuit of See also:seals and sea-otters, and who subsisted on its flesh. Numbers of bones have been discovered in the See also:soil of Bering and Copper Islands, from which more or less nearly perfect skeletons have been reconstructed, so that the See also:osteology of this interesting See also:animal is well represented in most of the larger museums. (R.

End of Article: RHYTINA

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