- CHARACTERISTICS
- It measures between 3 and 4 metres and its weight ranges from 200 and 300 kilograms.
The front extremities, in the shape of fins, have five deformed digits with small nails. The tail is flat. Its skin is very thick and blue-grey in colour.
They are distinguished from the dugongs through having a horizontally flat tail in the shape of a spatula, instead of a half moon shape.
- DIET
- They pass most of their time searching for and ingesting riverside plants and plants from the seabed of shallow waters.
- REPRODUCTION
- The female gives birth to a baby every 2 to 5 years.
The baby depends totally on its mother and remains with her for at least two years.
Only the female cares for the young, giving them milk until their teeth are well enough formed to eat hard foods.
- CURIOSITIES
- Forms large herds.
The Indians used to hunt it for food and for its skin. It is easy to hunt, as it prefers to die than to abandon an injured partner, and the whole herd will surround an injured party, with sad moans and at the mercy of the predator.
Due to this and for its oil and skin, it has been the subject of atrocious persecution, which has finished with the majority of them.
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- NAME
- West Indian Manatee
- HABITAT
- North to Northeast of South America
- SCIENTIFIC NAME
- Trichechus manatus manatus
- SPICE
- Mammals
- DIET
- Herbivore
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