Basic Info
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The West Indian Manatee (Trichechus manatus) is a large, gray, marine mammal. They are shaped like seals with two flippers and paddle-like tails. The average adult is 9 feet long, weighing approximately 1,000 pounds while babies are born between 3 and 4 feet long and weigh 40 to 60 pounds. Because they live near Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, they are often referred to as Florida Manatees. Manatees usually live in shallow, slow moving rivers, salt water bays, canals, coastal areas and estuaries where sea grass and freshwater vegetation flourish. They are a migrating species that live in the south around Florida in the winter, and as far north as South Carolina in the summer.
The West Indian Manatee's scientific classification is Kingdom: Animalia, phylum: Chordata, class: Mammalia, order: Sirenia, family: Trichenchidae, genus: Trichechus, and species: manatus. Below is a cladogram showing the West Indian Manatee and four extinct and extant species related to it.
Manatees are herbivores that feed on a variety of submerged, emergent, floating and shoreline vegetation. Florida manatees eat more than sixty different types of plants including turtle grass, manatee grass, shoal grass, mangrove leaves, various algae, water hyacinth, acorns, and hydrilla.
Manatees also have a very low reproductive rate. They are not sexually mature until the age of five and mothers have one calf every two to five years, twins are very rare. The gestation period is about one year, and the calf remains dependent on its mother for one to two years.
There are several adaptations that make manatees well suited to their environment. Manatees are very good swimmers that on average swim 3-5 miles per hour but can go up to 15 mph in short bursts. They also have breathing adaptations that allow them to spend more time underwater. In a single breath, a manatee can renew about 90% of the air in their lungs (this is substantial, humans can only renew about 17%). They can spend up to 20 minutes underwater without going back up for air, but usually resurface every 2-3 minutes. Another adaptation that the manatee has is their lips. Their lips make eating vegetation an easy task because of the sand paper like texture that is used to grip the plants. The manatee's blubber is very important to the life of a manatee as well. With out the amount of blubber that they have the manatee would experience cold stress syndrome and eventually die in early life. The blubber insulates the manatee's body for warmth. Manatees have a very low metabolism making them unable to do this because of the low metabolic rate.
For more information on manatees and a chance to see them in real life you can visit a number of zoos, observation centers, and state parks. In Florida, manatees can be spotted in the wild at the Blue Spring State Park, the Manatee Observation and Education Center, Aardvark's Florida Kayak ecotours, the Tampa Electric Company's manatee viewing center, and the Lee County Manatee Park. Disney World, Seaworld, and the Miami Seaquarium also contain captive manatees. To see manatees outside of Florida, you can also visit the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and the Cincinnatti Zoo and Botanical Gardens.