Manatees are now quite rare. Perhaps only 2,500 are left in the USA. In ancient times, sailors mistook them for mermaids or sirens on account of their long tails. Today, they often bear scars on account of their collisions with boats, a major hazard.
Manatees spend most of their time feeding, resting or travelling. They prefer shallow saltwater bays, slow-moving rivers, canals, estuaries and coastal waters. Manatees are quite agile creatures. A manatee uses its flippers and tail to steer itself. It moves its tail up and down to propel its body forward through the water. Manatees can swim vertically and upside down; they can do rolls and perform aquatic somersaults. Their extra-dense bones enable them to stay suspended at or below the water's surface.
Manatees eat over 60 different species of aquatic and semi-aquatic plants. Their diet includes manatee grass, turtle grass, various species of algae, mangrove leaves, and water hyacinths. They may consume 10% of their body weight daily in vegetation. Their digestive system allows the bacterial breakdown of cellulose in the hind-gut. To accommodate the great volume of high-fiber food they eat, manatatees have intestines up to 150 feet long.
The jointed bones of manatee's flipper serve a function similar to a human hand. Their structure helps the manatee move through the water, bring food to its mouth, and hold objects. Three or four nails are found at the end of each flipper. Manatees can't turn their heads: unlike most mammals, they have six rather than seven cervical vertebrae, so they must turn their whole bodies to look round.
Material from www.manatees.net.
