West Indian Manatee

Most manatees spend half their day sleeping in the water and the other half grazing on underwater plants. They are generally solitary creatures, unless mating, caring for their young, or sheltering in warm springs.

Description: Manatees can grow up to thirteen feet (4 m) long, weigh fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred pounds (680 to 816 kg) and live up to sixty years. They have grayish-brown thick wrinkled skin and propel themselves along with flippers and a large, flat tail. They evolved over millions of years from land mammals, and their closest living relatives are the elephant and the hyrax.

Habitat and Range: Manatees can be found in shallow, slow-moving rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays, canals, and coastal areas — particularly where seagrass beds or freshwater vegetation flourish. Manatees are a migratory species. Within the United States, they are concentrated in Florida in the winter. In summer months, they can be found as far west as Texas and as far north as Massachusetts, but summer sightings in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina are more common. West Indian manatees can also be found in the coastal and inland waterways of Central America and along the northern coast of South America