How old is the fossil record of the order that contains the only strictly marine herbivorous mammal?
Evolution of sirenians Sirenia is the order of placental mammals which comprises modern "sea cows" (manatees and the Dugong) and their extinct relatives. They are the only extant herbivorous marine mammals and the only group of herbivorous mammals to have become completely aquatic. Sirenians are thought to have a 50-million-year-old fossil record (early Eocene-recent). They attained modest diversity during the Oligocene and Miocene, but have since declined as a result of climatic cooling, oceanographic changes, and human interference. Two genera and four species are extant: "Trichechus", which includes the three species of manatee that live along the Atlantic coasts and in rivers and coastlines of the Americas and western Africa, and "Dugong", which is found in the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Labyrinthodontia Labyrinthodontia (Greek, "maze-toothed") is an extinct amphibian subclass, which constituted some of the dominant animals of late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras (about 390 to 150 million years ago). The group evolved from lobe-finned fishes in the Devonian and is ancestral to all extant landliving vertebrates. As such it constitutes an evolutionary grade (a paraphyletic group) rather than a natural group (clade). The name describes the pattern of infolding of the dentin and enamel of the teeth, which are often the only part of the creatures that fossilize. They are also distinguished by a heavily armoured skull roof (hence the older name "Stegocephalia"), and complex vertebrae, the structure of which is useful in older classifications of the group.