Who isn’t a little weird? Here at the Center for Biological Diversity, we celebrate peculiarity in every one of its human and animal forms. After all, who’d want to live in a world without weirdness?
Manatees: The Weird Cows of the Sea
In this installment of Save the Weirdos: the “sea cow” — which is like an ordinary cow, but mostly not. Mostly much weirder.
Ah, manatees: gentle giants of ocean and estuary, mistaken by (possibly drunk) sailors of yore for mermaids (really?) and today affectionately called “sea cows.” But what do these slow-swimming, smoosh-faced, wrinkly-skinned — frankly, weird — marine mammals actually have in common with their more boring bovine terrestrial namesake?
Well, sea cows are kinda like cows…
* For one thing, female manatees are actually called “cows” — like, by biologists. Male manatees are called “bulls” and baby manatees are called “calves.” So there’s that.
* Manatees and cattle are similarly sized: Manatees usually weigh between 880 and 1,200-plus pounds (possibly growing to be 3,500 pounds… Wha-ha?). Meanwhile, a Holstein Friesian dairy cow averages about 1,200 pounds.
* Like cattle, manatees are herbivorous — in fact, they’re the only all-vegetarian marine mammals. And both cattle and manatees eat a lot, though manatees take the gold, spending 6–8 hours a day consuming about 10 percent of their body weight in seagrass and other vegetation.
* Both kinds of cows — regular cows and mama manatees — usually give birth to a single calf, although twins do happen.
But sea cows are… way kookier than cows.
* Manatee calves nurse from their mothers’ “armpits” — underneath their front flippers. (And you thought udders were weird.)
* A manatee continuously loses and replaces its seagrass-cud-chewing teeth throughout its life, with new teeth growing in at the back of its mouth.
* The manatee has a massive digestive system, with a large stomach and a very long large intestine — an average of 65.5 feet. It takes about seven days for material to pass through manatees’ digestive system. (Cows poop relatively quickly, despite their complicated stomachs.)
*Manatees can only move about 3–5 miles per hour, allowing algae to grow on their backs — much weirder than cows’ hair, if you ask us.
* Female manatees’ genitals are above their anuses, while males’ are right below their navels. (There are a lot of “weirdo” things about cattle penises, too, so maybe we shouldn’t have brought up the genital thing. Oh well.)
* It’s illegal to ride a manatee in Florida. Sorry, no manatee-bull-riding ocean-rodeo antics, please.
…And there’s more.
But now for some manatee facts that aren’t anomalous and should be: Almost 40 percent of manatee mortality is caused by humans. The main threat to Florida manatees is boat collisions, which result in an average of 82 manatee deaths every year. Climate change, habitat loss and food-source depletion are also threats.
The Center has been working to save manatees in Florida since 2007, and we’re still at it. Want to help us save these and other imperiled weirdos around the world? Join our email list, donate if you can, and please make sure to LIKE this article to help our views (just click the ❤ symbol to the lower left).
