Popularly known as "sea cow“, by foraging on aquatic plants, the Sea manatee (Trichechus manatus) is one of four living species in the order of aquatic mammals Sirenia.
There are two subspecies of this manatee: the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) and the Antillean manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus). The two share many common traits. They are most often gray in color but can range from black to light brown.
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Their wrinkled skin is sparsely covered with hair and is sometimes spotted with algae or even barnacles. They have large, heavy bodies with paired flippers and a round paddle-shaped tail. Their faces are wrinkled and have mustaches. The upper lip is flexible and divided, morphologically adapted for passing food to the mouth.
At birth, the pups are between 90 centimeters and 1.2 meters long and weigh between 18 and 27 kilograms. When they reach adulthood, manatees average three meters in length and weigh between 800 and 540 kilograms. Despite the manatee's large size, they are very agile in the water.
They spend most of their time submerged but come up to the surface to breathe, usually remaining just below the surface with only their snouts above water. They can stay underwater for up to 12 minutes, but the average is 4.5 minutes.
Marine manatees prefer shallow, slow-moving waters of rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays, canals, and coastal areas. They can easily move between freshwater and saltwater environments, but they prefer freshwater. Also, they have no natural predators.
Sea cows eat aquatic plants such as crabgrass, turtle grass, water hyacinth and other marine plants. These animals consume between 4 and 9 percent of their body weight per day, which is equivalent to about 14 kg of plants per day.
Manatees spend about five to eight hours eating each day. They can use their flippers to dig up plants and use their upper lip to manipulate leaves. They also occasionally eat invertebrates and fish.
With no breeding season, manatees can mate at any time of the year. Females reach sexual maturity between 3 and 10 years of age and give birth to one or two young every two to five years. They are suckled underwater by a nipple behind the mother's forelimb. They can start eating the plants right away, but will continue to stay with their mothers and nurse for up to two years.
Sea manatees communicate by touch and vocalizations. The mother and calf recognize each other through these vocalizations, which help them stay in touch. The average lifespan of these mammals is 30 years in the wild.
Manatees are considered endangered and their survival is seen as limited due to their low reproductive rates. Manatees were historically hunted, but are now protected by several laws around the world that prohibit the capture of all marine mammals.
Today, the biggest threats to the manatee's survival are collisions with boats and loss of water sources, which provide important habitats. They are also vulnerable to entanglement in fishing equipment, red tides and pollutants.
Sailors, at the time of the great navigations, confused manatees with mermaids. The scientific name of manatees of the zoological order, Sirenia, comes from the word “mermaid”, a sea creature from mythology whose beautiful songs lured sailors to shipwrecks.
