Manatees

Today's outing was to visit the manatees and we saw lots of them! The Florida manatee is a large, plant-eating, warm-blooded marine mammal found in Florida's shallow coastal waters, rivers and springs. The average adult manatee or "sea cow" is about 10 feet long and weighs approximately 1,000 pounds. It has a large, seal-like body that tapers to a large, spatula-shaped flat tail. The two forelimbs or flippers of the manatee are paddle-shaped with up to four nails at the tip of each flipper. Manatees spend approximately six to eight hours per day feeding. Their hearty appetites consist of 60 to 100 pounds of vegetation each day. The location of the manatee's mouth is well adapted for feeding on bottom vegetation. Manatees eat submerged and floating vegetation. Here are a few of the ones we were lucky enough to find!

Lots of barnacles seem to like the back of this one!

This fella was waving to me!!!

The tail popped up when diving down for food!

This one appeared to be sunning on his or her back.