And unlike sharks, they don’t have a fatty liver or cartilaginous bones. Manatees are mammals, so, unlike bony fish, they don’t have a swim bladder. This may suggest that anything becomes cute when you spend long enough at sea. It’s thought that mermaid legends come from a similar root, and that manatees and dugongs may have been the inspiration for the half-fish half-woman creatures reported by lonely sailors. The order Sirenia, which includes both manatees and dugongs, is named after the Greek legend of the sirens, who were a group of mean monsters who lured sailors onto the rocks with their enchanting songs. While manatee have no natural predators in the wild, all three species of manatee are listed as vulnerable to extinction, due to threats from habitat destruction and ship strikes from humans. They have coarse whiskers and stubbly hair and can be pretty smart, too. They’re often confused with dugongs and with the one remaining species of sea cow, though they are a different genus. They surface every 3-5mins to breathe, but can hold their breath for up to 20mins. They are slow moving creatures and spend up to 50% of their time submerged asleep. Manatee are the oceans largest herbivores measuring up to 15ft in length and 1,775kg in weight. They eat around 10% of their body weight in plants each day. They like to diet on over 60 different types of plants, sea grasses and algae on the ocean floor. Manatee are generally solitary animals, although mothers will nurse their young. Their are 3 living species of Manatee the Amazonian manatee, West Indian manatee and West African manatee. Manatees are a group of three species in the order Sirenia, growing quite large and peacefully grazing on plants in the shallows of African, Central American, and Caribbean deltas. Sea grasses, fresh or saltwater plants/algaes Africa, Amazon Basin, Mexico and the Caribbean Shallow coastal regions and rivers in the tropics They’re not like many animals around today they share an unusual lineage and have some bizarre relationships. They’re called the manatees and often referred to as ‘sea cows’. There is a small genus of rather strange-looking rotund floaty vegetarians bouncing about in the shallows of the tropics.

Manatee predators