From mere fossil fragments, scientists have identified a remarkable underwater battle, frozen in time for millions of years.

An unfortunate sea cow – a mammal that looks a bit like a seal – was torn to shreds by a crocodile in waters of modern-day Venezuela, they say.

When the croc was finished with the corpse, what’s left of the poor animal was then scavenged by a tiger shark.

The bloody episode 11.6 million years ago is detailed in a study by paleontologists who have interpreted telling bite marks on the sea cow’s skeleton.

An incredible artist’s impression shows the sea cow gushing blood as it died – with the shark lurking in the background.

What are sea cows?

Sea cows, better known to scientists as sirenians, are marine mammals that graze on plants – hence the name.

This study focused on remains of the dugongine sea cow, belonging to the extinct genus Culebratherium.

It was preyed upon by two different carnivores – a crocodilian and a shark – somewhere between 11.6 million and 23 million years ago.

 

‘These findings consтιтute one of the few records documenting multiple predators over a single prey,’ say the team, led by experts at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

‘Evidence of trophic [feeding] interactions are not scarce in the fossil record, yet these are mostly represented by fragmentary fossils exhibiting marks of ambiguous significance.’

The sea cow skeleton, consisting of a partial skull and 18 vertebrae, was found in the Agua Clara Formation of northwestern Venezuela.

The scientists say it was the dugongine sea cow, belonging to the extinct genus Culebratherium, which lived during the Early to Middle Miocene epoch (23 million to 11.6 million years ago).

The blubbery sea cow was not able to fully submerge itself in water but tended to float on the surface, grazing on kelp and making grunting noises.

This made it particularly vulnerable to hunting by the vicious species hiding in the water’s depths.

According to the researchers, deep tooth marks on this sea cow’s snout suggest the crocodile first tried to grasp its prey by the snout in an attempt to suffocate it.

Two further large incisions indicate the crocodile then dragged the sea cow, tearing its flesh in the process and turning the water deep red with blood.

The cunning crocodile likely then executed a ‘death roll’ while grasping its prey – a behaviour commonly observed in modern crocodiles.

A tooth of a tiger shark found in the sea cow’s neck and shark bite marks observed throughout the skeleton show the remains of the creature were then picked apart by the scavengers.

‘Because of the irregular distribution of the shark bite marks, these are interpreted as scavenging,’ the authors say.

The findings mark one of the sole examples of a creature being attacked by two different predators during the Early to Middle Miocene epoch, the team claim.

They also add to evidence that suggests the food chain, millions of years ago, behaved in a similar way to the present day.

‘Today, often when we observe a predator in the wild, we find the carcᴀss of prey which demonstrates its function as a food source for other animals too,’ said lead author Aldo Benites-Palomino at the University of Zurich.

‘But fossil records of this are rarer [so] we have been unsure as to which animals would serve this purpose as a food source for multiple predators.

‘Our previous research has identified sperm whales scavenged by several shark species, and this new research highlights the importance of sea cows within the food chain.’

The new study has been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.