Saturday, August 11, 2018

Steller´s sea cow



“Mammals of the Soviet Union” is an apparently unfinished encyclopedia (at least in its English version), the original purpose of which was to describe all species of mammals found on the vast territory of the USSR. This volume, known as “Volume II, Part 1a”, is dated 1998. It's based on part of a Russian-language volume published in Moscow already in 1967. Why an old work like this is still of interest to zoologists is an interesting question – perhaps no other information on Soviet mammals (or are they ex-Soviet) is readily available?

This volume covers Sirenia and some of Carnivora. It's of interest due to the fact that it contains a translation of most of Georg Wilhelm Steller's original description of Steller's sea cow, a peculiar marine mammal known as Kapustnik in Russian. The type specimen was secured by Steller during the Bering expedition to the Commander Islands in 1742. The scientific description is dated 1751/1753. By 1768, Steller's sea cow had been hunted to extinction! Why this would be a problem for zoologists who understand the creative power of natural selection is, of course, another interesting question…

The rest of this volume covers more “regular” mammals, such as the Jackal, Gray Wolf, Arctic Fox, Red Fox, Brown Bear and Polar Bear. The whole book is 733 pages, despite only dealing with 12 species, thereby telling us something of the enormous amount of facts it contains…

“Mammals of the Soviet Union” is a reference work, and hence contain relatively few pictures, but if you are a budding mammalogist with a penchant for the Eurasian theatre, this might be the just the treat you're looking for.

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