A seagrass-eating marine mammal of the Indo-West Pacific, the manatee’s relative and the only living member of its family. Its closest relative, Steller’s sea cow, was hunted to extinction in the 1700s.
Quick answers
What is it?Mammal
Carnivore?No, herbivore
Dangerous?No
Domesticated?No
Awake when?Day & night
Hibernates?No
Kept as a pet?No
Do people eat it?In places
Hunted for thousands of years for meat and oil, and traditional hunting still matters culturally.
At a glance
Found inOceans
HabitatCoast, Open ocean
ColoursGrey, Brown
SizeHuge
LegsNone
Covered inSkin
Lives alone
Lives for70 years
Can swim
In the wild
- Where it lives
- Coastal waters of some 40 countries across the Indian Ocean and western Pacific.
- What it eats
- Seagrass.
Did you know
Grazes seagrass meadows, leaving visible trails along the seabed.
Feeding trails have been seen as deep as 33 m.
Often confused with
- Manatee
Dugongs and manatees are the four living sirenians; the dugong lives in the Indo-West Pacific.
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