TY - JOUR JF - lu-jad JO - JAD VL - 5 IS - 1 PY - 2023 Y1 - 2023/3/01 TI - After two decades: extremely rare records of dugongs, Dugong dugon (Sirenia: Dugongidae), in the Iranian Persian Gulf TT - N2 - The world's second-largest dugong, Dugong dugon (Müller), population after that of Australia forages among rich seagrass meadows along the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf; however, the relatively seagrass-poor Iranian coast is considered an exceptional habitat for the species. The last modern dugong records along the Iranian Persian Gulf occurred two decades ago, which, however, are unsupported. Here we present two new documented records of D. dugon from an area in the Iranian coastal waters of Bushehr Province, near the Mond River estuary (Mond Protected Area), northeastern Persian Gulf. These include one individual, probably female, of ca. 2.5–3 m body length found floating, in moderate decomposition, in offshore waters of the Motaf fishing ground on 30 April 2021, and one ca. 3 m female encountered entangled in a set gillnet in inshore waters of the same area on 29 December 2022, and which was successfully released alive. The potential of the area as a possible historical habitat for dugongs, and further implications, are discussed. SP - 108 EP - 112 AU - Tollab, Mohammad Amin AU - Rezaie-Atagholipour, Mohsen AU - Ali Abedi, Haleh AU - Askari Hesni, Majid AU - Abedi, Ehsan AU - Ahmadi, Farideh AU - Van Waerebeek, Koen AD - Qeshm Environmental Conservation Institute (QECI), Persian Gulf Biotechnology Park, Qeshm Island, Iran KW - Bycatch KW - citizen science KW - conservation KW - gillnet KW - historical habitat KW - Indian Ocean UR - http://jad.lu.ac.ir/article-1-284-en.html DO - 10.61186/JAD.5.1.108 ER -