Trivia question for Feb-25-2011

Olivia just brought me the facts for today’s trivia and she decided on these gentle giants.

These guys have been hunted for hundreds of years for meat and hide, and continues to be hunted to this day in Central and South America.   Illegal poaching, as well as collisions with speeding motorboats, are a constant source of fatalities.

These guys have a high casuality rate due to thermal shock from cold temperatures. During cold weather many die due to their digestive tract shutting down at water temperatures below 68 degrees Fahrenheit.  The average size is approximately 3 meters long, and weighs between 400 and 600 kg, with females generally larger than males. The largest individuals can weigh up to 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) and measure up to 4.6 m (15 ft).

So here are Olivia’s questions:  Tell us how far north these guys have been known to travel during summer, and how old these guys can get in the wild.  Also, tell us how much sea grasses and plant leaves can a large male eat in a day?

Good Luck 😉

Answer:

Congratulations to John and Timothy for posting your responses but Natalie was the first one to answer all the questions correctly.  The cute little baby we featured is in fact the West Indian Manatee.

The West Indian Manatee is a manatee, and the largest surviving member of the aquatic mammal order Sirenia (which also includes the Dugong and the extinct Steller’s Sea Cow).  The West Indian Manatee is a species distinct from the Amazonian Manatee, and the West African Manatee.  Research suggests that the West Indian manatee actually falls out into 3 groups, which are more or less geographically distributed as: (1) Florida and the Greater Antilles; (2) Central and Northern South America; and (3) Northeastern South America.

As for traveling north in the summer, they generally go as far north as the Georgia coast with an occasional manatee spotted as far as New York and once even as far north as Cape Cod.  As for their age, it is believed that these guys generally achieve the age of 60.  Manatees have a ferocious appetite and generally consume as much as 110-lbs per day.

Here is more on these cool sea-cows: West Indian Manatee

Thanks for playing along 😉