Glide Through Your Day

A Manatee is a large, fully aquatic marine mammal. Sometimes known as sea cows, manatees are mostly herbivores foraging on aquatic plants. The West Indian manatee is one of four living species in the aquatic mammal order Sirenia. 

There are two subspecies of West Indian manatees. They are the Florida manatee found primarily along the coast of Florida, the Gulf Coast, and the Caribbean and the Antillean manatee found in the Caribbean, in the Gulf and Caribbean coasts of Central America and in northern and eastern South America.

Florida manatees migrate between winter grounds in the Caribbean and Florida and summer grounds that can be as far west as Texas and as far north as North Carolina.  They have even been spotted as far north as Rhode Island. Because of their low metabolism and lack of insulating body fat, they have little tolerance for cold water. 

Both the Florida manatee and the Antillean manatee share many traits in common. They are most often grey in colour but can range from black to a light brown.  They have large seal-shaped bodies and their wrinkled skin is sparsely covered with hairs and sometimes spotted with algae or barnacles. Their faces are wrinkled, they have whiskers, and their upper lip is flexible and split to pass food into their mouth. They have a pair of flippers and a round, paddle-shaped tail.  West Indian manatees are faster than they look.  They use their tail to swim around five mph. They can even swim up to 15 mph in short bursts. 

Manatees can mate at any time of the year.  Females will give birth to one or two calves every two to five years.  The calves stay with their mothers and nurse underwater from a nipple behind the mother’s forelimb for up to two years.  The calves can start eating plants right away. 

West Indian manatees communicate with touch and vocalizations.  Mother and calf can recognize each other by these vocalizations which sound like squeals and squeaks.  This helps them to remain in contact.  

Calves are between three and four feet long and weigh between 40 and 60 pounds at birth.  When they reach adulthood, the average manatee is 10 feet in length and weighs between 800 to 1,200 pounds.  Manatees spend most of their time underwater and return to the surface to breathe.  They can remain underwater for as long as 12 minutes.  A manatee may surface as often as every 30 seconds, when it is exerting great amounts of energy.

These sea cows eat aquatic plants such as cordgrass, turtle grass, and eelgrass.  They spend about five to eight hours eating each day and consume about 32 pounds of plants every day. They use their flippers to dig up plants and use their upper lip to manipulate the plants’ leaves for feeding. Sometimes they will eat invertebrates and fish.  Manatees have a mouthful of teeth which they use to munch on the seagrass and other plant life. 

Manatees can help prevent vegetation from becoming overgrown. They consume water hyacinth and other invasive species which helps improve the health of the ecosystem.  Manatees also fertilize the sea grasses and other submerged aquatic vegetation.

The manatee is protected under federal law which makes it illegal to harass, hunt, capture or kill any marine mammal.  The Florida manatee population has grown to a minimum of 7,250 animals so in May 2017 the species was reclassified from an endangered to a threatened species.  

The West Indian manatee has no natural predators. Manatees, sharks and alligators all share the same habitat but manatees do not compete with sharks and alligators for food.  Tiger sharks will prey on weak or young manatees but will stay away from healthy adults that are too large to be easily prey upon.  The biggest threat to manatees comes from humans.  Collisions with boats and barges is the greatest cause of manatee deaths in Florida.

Manatees can live up to 50 years or more in the wild.  One captive Florida manatee named Snooty, lived for 69 years (1948-2017).

These are the sayings on the bookmark called Advice from a Manatee.

• Breathe Deep

• Glide Through Your Day

• Have a Gentle Spirit

• Enjoy Time Alone

• Eat Plenty of Greens

• Keep Your Whiskers Clean

• Live Large!

Here are my comments about each of these sayings.

• Breathe Deep - When you breathe deeply you allow your body to fully exchange incoming oxygen with outgoing carbon dioxide. Breathing deeply can also slow the heartbeat, lower blood pressure and lower stress.

• Glide Through Your Day - To glide means to move smoothly, continuously and effortlessly.  Planning the night before helps you glide through your day.

• Have a Gentle Spirit - Someone who is gentle is kind, mild, and calm. 

• Enjoy Time Alone - Giving yourself alone time means you can explore the things you enjoy without feeling pressured or judged by others.

• Eat Plenty of Greens - Eat a healthy diet.

• Keep Your Whiskers Clean - Advice from many animals with whiskers - manatees, sea lions, cats.

• Live Large! - Manatees are large mammals. Live Large!

Have a great day everyone!  Glide Through Your Day.

# living life abundantly  # published author  # travelling tuesdays