This flexibility allowsthe manatee to "grab" aquatic plants and draw them into its mouth. They are remnants of a time when manatees lived on land. Think of it like an extra eyelid. The calf may stay with its mother (cow) for up to 2 years. This lip is extremely important to the manatee as they use it to get and consume food as well as for socializing and communicating with each other. Bulls will leave a cow alone after her breeding period is over.

A manatee can move each side of its lip pads independently. The manatee’s flaky skin adaptation also helps keep the algae and barnacles from building up on the animals. The adult population of Antillean manatees is likely fewer than 2,500 individuals, and the number of adult Florida manatees is thought to be approximately 2,300. These unique aquatic creatures definitely have some highly specialized features. The tail is one of the most powerful parts of the body on a manatee. Top Answer. These small hairs provide a tactile system or sense of touch to help manatees understand their surroundings through changes in water currents and pressure wakes. Both families belong to the order Sirenia, whose closest living relatives are elephants of the order Proboscidea. Manatees, particularly mothers and calves, communicate by sound, producing faint underwater chirps, squeaks, and grunts. All manatees have whiskers on their faces, and they are believed to help them with sensory due to the vibrations. Age estimates based on growth rings in ear bones indicate life spans of up to 59 years, and at least one manatee has survived more than 69 years in captivity.

The bones in a manatee's flipper are similar to a human hand.

To counter abrasion from ingested sand and silica, manatees constantly grow new molars. The manatee's rib bones are solid, there is no marrow. The only way to really tell a male and female manatee from each other is to look at the genital area. The West African manatee is also similar to the ancestral forms and may have dispersed from South America to Africa via transoceanic currents. Humans change 10 percent when they breathe. Full grown they can weigh up to 1,200 pounds. The fossil ancestors of modern manatees lived during the Miocene Epoch (23 million to 5.3 million years ago), when South America was isolated and the uplifting of the Andes Mountains caused a flourishing of aquatic vegetation, including grasses. Many people have the opinion that the manatee is very strangely put together.

Manatees also engage in tactile contact (touch reception) by using sensory hairs scattered across the body, especially the hairs and bristles of the muzzle. Most other mammals, including giraffes, have seven. The jointed "finger-like bones" of the flipper help the manatee move through the water, bring food to its mouth, and hold objects.

They make red blood cells in their sternum where marrow is found. While most people tend to see many manatees gathered together at winter warm-water sites, during the rest of the year these animals are semi-social as they travel around the state’s waterways in search of food, mates or places to rest. Amazonian manatees appear to be descendants of Miocene trichechids isolated in a closed interior basin of South America. The split between this ancestral African stock and that leading to the ungulate, carnivore, xenarthran, and cetacean orders occurred as much as 90 million years ago. Some Florida manatee are known to travel up the eastern coastline into Georgia, the Carolinas, and a few travel as far north as Massachusetts during warm months. In fact, should they get injured in this location it is going to be very difficult for them to survive. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission • Farris Bryant Building You will notice that the manatee has a prehensile which is the upper lip looking similar to the trunk of an elephant only shorter. Manatees can remain submerged for up to 20 minutes. These unique aquatic creatures definitely have some highly specialized features. The Antillean subspecies is very similar but is distinguishable from the Florida manatee by measurement differences of cranial characters between the species. The other subspecies lives in nearshore waters, lagoons, estuaries, and rivers of eastern Mexico, down the Central American coast, and across northern South America. Tourists and residents alike seek encounters with manatees in the wild or visit zoos and aquaria to view captives. New teeth come in at the back of the jaw and move forward horizontally about a centimeter a month. Algae often grows on the backs and tails of manatees, which makes their skin color appear green or. Although the cerebrum lacks marked convolutions, the proportion of the brain devoted to higher functions is comparable to that of primates.

Otherwise it can make any animal that consumes so much of it extremely ill. Compared with the fish and krill eaten by other marine mammals, most aquatic plants are low in energy value and protein. The nostrils, located on the upper surface of the bulbous blunt snout, close tightly when underwater. Sexual maturity occurs as young as three years, with gestation taking about a year or slightly longer. The heart rate slows down to 30 beats a minute during a long dive. Despite weighing 1,000 pounds or more, manatees do not have a continuous layer of blubber like whales to stay warm. Manatees have two fore limb flippers that they use for steering movements and to hold vegetation while eating. Manatees are quite agile in the water. These bones are similar to the Adam's apple in humans.

Unlike almost all other mammals, tooth replacement occurs throughout life. They have teeth that all look the same. Wildlife Biologist, Midcontinent Ecological Science Center, United States Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado. A manatee's heart beats at a rate of 50 to 60 beats a minute. Strong swimmers, they are capable of reaching speeds of 15 miles per hour in short bursts. The front molars eventually fall out and are replaced by the teeth behind them. It also occurs around the Greater Antilles islands of the Caribbean—hence its common name, the Antillean manatee (T. manatus manatus). Florida manatees are large, aquatic mammals that are native to Florida. The cecum is needed to help eliminate the bacteria that can be found in such food sources. The lungs are long (1 meter or more in adults), wide (20 cm), and thin (5 cm or less). The Amazonian manatee (T. inunguis) inhabits the Amazon River and associated drainage areas, including seasonally inundated forests. This set of diverse adaptations enables foraging on a variety of plant forms, including submerged sea grasses, floating plants, mangrove leaves, and grasses along banks. The Florida manatee is a symbol for conservation and an extremely popular animal with the public.

What to Do if You See a Sick, Injured, Dead, or Tagged Manatee. Announcing our NEW encyclopedia for Kids! Manatees use their tails in an up and down motion to propel themselves forward. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). These whiskers are very sensitive and researchers believe that they help with various types of brain functions as well including memory and decision making. They are primarily solitary but form small transient groups for periods of hours or days. by Manatee-World | Feb 27, 2014 | Information |. To handle such a diet, manatees are hindgut digesters (like horses) and have intestines as long as 30 metres (100 feet). The lungs are oriented parallel to the water’s surface, and the ribs lack marrow, which makes them unusually dense and heavy. Manatees can hear very well despite the absence of external ear lobes. Manatees have two fore limb flippers that they use for steering movements and to hold vegetation while eating. Barnacles (found mostly on coastal dwelling manatees) often leave round scars from attachment sites; movement from saltwater to freshwater habitats clears the animals of these saltwater hitchhikers. A large, round, flattened paddle-shaped tail is used for swimming.