Cows are common animals on land, but you know what? There is also a cute animal called the manatee in the sea, which is also a herbivorous animal, and its number is very small, and its distribution area is also very limited.
Today we'll make a little bit of an introduction to this endangered manatee:
Manatee (English name; Manatees, academic name: Trichechus, sometimes referred to as Sea cows, are animals that live in water. It lives mainly in rivers and offshore waters.
Manatees have several notable features:
Manatees mainly feed on grass, and occasionally fishy, such as small fish. Manatees drink milk, but become vegetarians as adults. Manatee eats an astonishing amount of food, it can eat one-tenth of its weight in 24 hours.
Manatees spend half their time sleeping underwater and are veritable "sleeping cows".
Manatees are also good swimmers, usually gliding at 5 mph but can accelerate to 15 mph in a short period of time.
Manatees are intellectually advanced, with intelligence comparable to dolphins in terms of visual and sound recognition.
Manatees usually appear alone, in pairs, or in small groups of six or fewer animals. From above the surface of the water, the manatee's nose and nostrils are usually the only areas visible.
Manatees never leave the waters, but like all marine mammals, they must breathe air from the surface of the water. A resting manatee can stay underwater for up to 15 minutes, but when swimming, it must surface every three to four minutes.
The cattle are mainly found in tropical waters, including shallow seas along the Atlantic Basin, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Amazon River. The distribution area is as follows, so if you want to see them, you can only go to these areas to find:
There are only three species of manatees in the world, of the three extant species:
West Indian manatee is mainly found in the Caribbean Sea and the northeastern coast of South America, of which Florida is the only one in the subtropics, about 5,000 manatees live, because they can not live in temperatures below 15 ° C, so many of the manatees there migrate to relatively warm waters in winter.
The West African Manatee inhabits mainly the west coast of Africa, from the south of the Senegal River to the Quang Sa River in Angola. Similar to the West Indian manatee, they swim upstream into large rivers and are therefore often found in the shallow calm waters of estuarine deltas and offshore polyhydrates.
Amazonian Manatee live only in the Amazon River and its tributaries, and they are never found in the waters.
Manatees are born underwater. The mother must help them get to the surface so that they can breathe for the first time, but the cubs are usually only able to swim on their own after an hour.
Face an existential threat
Manatees are large, slow-moving animals that often appear in coastal waters and rivers. These attributes make them vulnerable to hunting, hunters looking for their raw skins, fats and bones. Manatee populations declined in the last century, largely because of over-hunting.
Today, manatees, while protected by law, still face threats. Mild manatees are often accidentally hit by motorboats in increasingly crowded waters, sometimes entangled in fishing nets.
The frequent activity of humans in their habitat is the biggest crisis that manatees suffer! But some volunteers are also actively working to protect endangered manatees.
Non-profit organization: Saving the manatee (www.savethemanatee.org) is one such non-profit organization that specifically targets the manatee crisis.