Behavior and Food
The West Indian manatee is surprisingly agile in water, and individuals have been seen doing rolls, somersaults, and even swimming upside-down. Manatees are not territorial and do not have complex predator avoidance behavior, as they have evolved in areas without natural predators. The common predators of marine mammals, such as orcas and large sharks, are rarely (if ever) found in habitats inhabited by this species.
The West Indian manatee is an opportunistic feeder, with large adults consuming 10% to 15% of their body weight in food daily. Manatees feed on about 60 plant species, which includes sea grasses as their major food source. They also consume some fish and small invertebrates. Because manatees feed on abrasive plants, their molars are often worn down and are continually replaced throughout life, called "marching molars".
The West Indian manatee has a high casualty rate due to thermal shock from cold temperatures. During cold weather, many die due to their digestive tracts shutting down at water temperatures below 68°F (20°C). Many manatee deaths are caused by large commercial vessels, but are attributed to "recreational watercraft" due to the elimination of that classification.
Read more about this topic: West Indian Manatee
Famous quotes containing the words behavior and/or food:
“The ease with which problems are understood and solved on paper, in books and magazine articles, is never matched by the reality of the mother’s experience. . . . Her child’s behavior often does not follow the storybook version. Her own feelings don’t match the way she has been told she ought to feel. . . . There is something wrong with either her child or her, she thinks. Either way, she accepts the blame and guilt.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“Hume, and other skeptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow that will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)