All printables
Steller's Sea Cow — printable fact sheet
Free to print or save as PDF. Great for classrooms, homeschooling, and young explorers.
Creature Atlas
Animal Fact Sheet
Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________
Steller's Sea Cow
Hydrodamalis gigas
Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) was the largest sirenian ever known, reaching 8 to 9 metres and several tonnes, and it was extinguished within 27 years of being described. The naturalist Georg Steller met it in 1741 when the Bering expedition was wrecked on Bering Island …
Did you know?
- Steller's Sea Cow went extinct less than three decades after it was first discovered, making it one of the fastest documented extinctions of a large mammal due to human activity.
- The only naturalist ever to see a living Steller's sea cow was Georg Steller, and the species was extinct 27 years later. It was too buoyant to dive and floated with its back out of the water, which is exactly why it was so easy to kill. It had no teeth, grinding kelp between two rough horny pads. Its numbers were already collapsing before Europeans arrived, because prehistoric hunting of sea otters had allowed urchins to destroy the kelp forests it fed on across most of its range.
What I learned
Draw the steller's sea cow
© Creature Atlas · www.creatureatlas.com · Free for classroom & personal use
Want the whole set?
Get printable fact-sheet packs, coloring pages, and classroom worksheet bundles for dozens of animals — ready to download and print.
Browse printable packsGet a free printable each week
Join the newsletter for a new Creature of the Week + printables.