Manatee Facts – 51 Interesting Facts About Manatee Facts

Manatee Facts for Kids

Manatee has 24 to 32 teeth in four rows.

Manatees are herbivores and spend six to eight hours munching aquatic grass and vegetation. This wears out their teeth which eventually fall out and are replaced by constantly growing molars in the corners of the mouth. Manatees are herbivorous and like sea grasses but they can consume freshwater vegetation including algae.

Manatee is very gentle and incapable of using its teeth to attack and do not show any kind of aggression.

The lungs of manatee can stretch the entire length of the body.

Manatee’s lungs run along the spines on the top of their body and the lungs act as a flotation tank too control buoyancy.

Manatees use this mechanism to surface to breathe instead of swimming too the surface. Even when manatees’ sleep their rib cage is relaxed and expand the lung volume to float gently on the surface.

The gestation period is usually one year before the manatee calves are born.

After mating, the bull manatee does not take part in raising the young and this duty fall on the cow manatee.

The calves are weaned for about a year and they learn to swim and forage from their mothers.

The first law to protect manatees was drafted in 1893 in Florida.