Prorastomidae
Prorastomidae is a family of extinct sirenians from Jamaica, related to the extant manatees and dugong. The family includes the oldest known fossils of Sirenians, represented in two genera:Pezosiren

Nobu Tamura · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- SireniaPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Sirenia
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Sirenia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Sirenia
Time the record covers
At least 3.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 37.71 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 33.9 Mya.
6 occurrences of Prorastomidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
6 occurrences- Eocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
4 formations
- Chapelton Formation · Yellow Limestone Group3
- Crystal River Formation1
- Inglis Formation1
- Taiba Formation1
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The named rock units Prorastomidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Prorastomidae and its relatives
EoceneWhere Prorastomidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
33 taxa- Charactosuchus kugleri2 sites
- Prorastomus sirenoides2 sites
- Abdounia1 site
- Asteroidea1 site
- Brachycarcharias1 site
- Brachycarcharias koerti1 site
- Burnhamia1 site
- Campanile1 site
- Carolia1 site
- Carolinacetus1 site
- Chiloscyllium meraense1 site
- Coupatezia1 site
- Crustacea1 site
- Cylindracanthus1 site
- Dasyatis1 site
- Echinoidea1 site
- Eovasum1 site
- Foraminifera1 site
- Galeocerdo latidens1 site
- Hyrachyus modestus1 site
- Macrorhizodus praecursor1 site
- Mollusca1 site
- Osteichthyes1 site
- Otodus (Carcharocles)1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Prorastomidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
5 references- Fossil Sirenia of the West Atlantic and Caribbean region. V. The most primitive known sirenian, Prorastomus sirenoides Owen, 18552
- First prorastomid sirenian from Senegal (Western Africa) and the Old World origin of sea cows1
- A bone bed in the Eocene of Jamaica1
- Note on the geology of the Daban Area and the localities of the described nautiloids1
- On the fossil skull of a mammal (Prorastomus sirenoides, Owen), from the Island of Jamaica1
Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Prorastomidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Nobu Tamura
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Prorastomidae was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSirenia through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1889)