Life history

Half a manatee’s day is spent sleeping in the water, surfacing for air regularly at intervals no greater than 20 minutes. Manatees spend most of the rest grazing in shallow waters at depths of 1–2 metres (3.3–6.6 ft). The Florida subspecies (T. m. latirostris) has been known to live up to 60 years.

Swimming

On average, manatees swim at about 5 to 8 kilometres per hour (3.1 to 5.0 mph). However, they have been known to swim at up to 30 kilometres per hour (19 mph) in short bursts.

Intelligence

Manatees are capable of understanding discrimination tasks, and show signs of complex bumociated learning and advanced long term memory.[5] They demonstrate complex discrimination and task-learning similar to dolphins and pinnipeds in acoustic and visual studies.[6]

Reproduction

Manatees typically breed once every two years, gestation lasts about 12 months, and it takes a further 12 to 18 months to wean the calf. Only a single calf is born at a time and aside from mothers with their young or males following a receptive female, manatees are generally solitary creatures.[3]

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