Curious about Manatees
Meet the gentle giants of the waterways, skilled underwater gardeners grazing and drifting through aquatic meadows with surprising grace.
Curious about Manatees
Meet the gentle giants of the waterways, skilled underwater gardeners grazing and drifting through aquatic meadows with surprising grace.
Handle With Care
If you go down to the lagoon today you just might meet a manatee, but be careful as these marine mammals are protected by law. Slow your boat down and don’t approach them.
These gentle, whiskery mermaids spend their days roaming rivers, estuaries, lagoons and shallow coastal waters, grazing on seagrass meadows, munching aquatic plants like water hyacinth and keeping waterways healthy one enormous mouthful at a time.
Sea Cows of the World
Manatees belong to the order Sirenia. An ancient and exclusive group of marine mammals. Manatees share this order with one other living species the Dugong.
Hundreds of years ago a sea cow giant roamed our cold waters. The Steller’s sea cow which was hunted to extinction in the 18th century, not long after they were originally discovered.
The three surviving species of manatee are the West Indian, West African and Amazonian. The West Indian is made up of 2 sub species the Florida and Antillean.
Where in the World?
Follow the warm water. Manatees can be found across the Atlantic, from the south east coast of the USA and the outer Caribbean islands, all the way across to the west coast of Africa and deep into the Amazon river in South America.
Did you know?
Manatees can’t tolerate the cold. Despite their size they have very little body fat for insulation, so they rely entirely on warm water to regulate their temperature.
They migrate with the seasons, hugging warm coastlines, pushing deep into river systems and gathering around natural springs or even power plants when temperatures dip.
They also move freely between saltwater and freshwater, their bodies adapting thanks to their remarkable reniculate kidneys, multi-lobed super kidneys that help them manage the switch.
Dive deeper into each species
Discover what makes them unique 👇
There's More to a Manatee Than Meets the Eye
Vocabulary
Stuck on a word? Have a look below.
Aquatic living or found in water
Ballast weight that helps keep something stable and balanced.
Bouyancy the ability to float or stay at a certain depth in water.
Estuary where a river meets the sea, mixing fresh and salt water.
Lagoon a shallow stretch of water separated from the sea by a sandbank or reef.
Herbivore an animal that only eats plants.
Nictitating lens a transparent eyelid that protects the eye underwater.
Marine mammal a warm-blooded animal that lives in or around the sea and breathes air.
Migrate to travel from one place to another with the seasons.
Prehensile able to grip and hold, like fingers
Seagrass meadow underwater fields of grass-like plants that grow in shallow coastal waters.
Sirenia the scientific order that manatees and dugongs belong to.
Subspecies a smaller group within a species that shares specific characteristics.
Reniculate Kidney instead of one kidney, manatees have kidneys made up of lots of tiny individual kidneys all bundled together, each one doing its own job
Vibrissae are tiny hair sensors that pick up movement and vibrations covering the manatees body and mouth.
Vestigial a leftover body part no longer needed after millions of years of evolution.