What a sensation it is, to be quietly paddling a canoe on almost any South Florida waterway, to suddenly hear the sound of something taking a breath directly behind you! And then, upon whirling around (carefully, you are in a canoe, remember) to see a pair of nostrils protruding from the surface! This is an experience shared by many of us in Wildlife Research Team: a curious manatee tagging along with our black canoes as if we are all part of the same herd.

This brief article can serve only as a warm introduction to this friendly marine mammal, distant cousin of the elephant, because the more one researches manatees, the more there is to know. The one thing I do know from my fifteen years of being a WRT guide: whenever people come out in our canoes, they really want to see manatees. The questions in this article are some of the most Frequently Asked Questions, which should serve as a way to get you started on your manatee studies. At the end of this article, I'll give you references so that you can explore more deeply. There are a lot of myths involving manatees, and only research and education can establish the facts.

Q: Are manatees native to Florida?
A: They've sure been here a lot longer than humans! Fossils of manatees found in our state have been dated back to the Pleistocene epoch, more than a million years ago. There is an "urban legend' that manatees were imported a few decades ago for aquatic weed control; not true!

Q: Are manatees related to walruses? They sure look like it.
A: I agree on the resemblance, and they are both marine mammals, but manatees and their cousins, the dugongs (who may sport walrus-like tusks, to add to the confusion) are vegetarians, classified in the Order Sirenia, while walruses are in the Order Carnivora— they eat meat. (Although manatees have been seen to nab a fish now and then, just to keep us all on our toes!) Walruses, although just as portly, have a different sort of blubber to keep their body temperatures stable; more on that in a moment.

The name "Sirenia" even is derived from folklore; sailors who obviously were at sea for a very long time, upon spotting manatees, mistook them for beautiful mermaids or sirens— who sang such a tempting song that the sailors lost their judgment and let the ship crash into the rocks—and the name has stuck through the centuries. The manatees we see in Florida are a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, Trichechus manatus latirostris.

Q: Why are manatees so huge, and shaped like giant sweet potatoes?
A: Remember how when you go for a swim, how cold you can get even in the summer? That's because water pulls the heat from your body 25 times faster than when you are dry. Marine mammals need all that bulk to keep their core at a constant body temperature. Whether you're a human, a peacock, a gerbil or a manatee, your body is designed to work best at certain temperatures. Each moment within us, countless chemical processes are taking place which can only work properly if at the right temperatures. Manatees are especially sensitive to cold; they have a very low metabolism, and it's hard for their insides to stay warm enough to keep them from getting sick from cold stress in the winter. Their type of blubber is made differently than that of seals and walruses, which thrive in subzero temperatures, and their thick, heavy skin does not provide as much cold protection as you'd think. It does help them to stay submerged, however. Scientists have discovered that our Florida manatees are bigger around than those further south, and it could be that it's a way for these tropical mammals to survive Florida's often surprisingly cold winters.

Q: Manatees are also called sea cows; does that mean they eat like cows, and chew their cud?
A: "Land" cows are classified as ruminants, as they have several stomachs with one called the rumen. They need several stomachs at the beginning of their digestive tract so as to fully break down that tough grass and hay they are fed. Grass contains a lot of cellulose, a fiber tough to digest without a lot of work, and several stomachs to digest and ferment the cellulose. What we call "cud" is a mouthful of regurgitated stomach contents that will be broken down further by the cow's chewing of it (yum!). All of this means that cows do a good job extracting the nutrients from their food. Sea cows are more like horses: they don't have rumens, have one stomach, and don't chew a cud, and their major area of digestion is further from the beginning of the digestive tract. Since they get less out of their food, they must eat more frequently; manatees may eat eight hours a day. There are two interesting side effects of the digestion of cellulose in the sea cow: it causes heat, so it's sort of a furnace inside the manatee, helping it to survive life in cool water; and it causes gas, which may help to keep the manatee buoyant! Some scientists even think that manatees are able to adjust the position of their diaphragms and control the gas pressure in their large intestine, influencing their buoyancy. Another, more distressing way that they are sea cows, is that they've been killed and butchered for food throughout human history. Although in Florida, we think of sea cows as friends, even cute friends, in other countries they are still hunted for food; think of it, that one full grown manatee, weighing a ton, could literally feed a village.

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