Lifespan
Most manatees live 60 to 70 years
Most manatees live 60 to 70 years
Seagrass
Rivers & coastal waters
Off the Caribbean sea & the gulf of Mexico
Eva is the largest manatee in Amazon Flooded Forest. She weighs about 1,200kg! The mother of eight calves and grandmother of seven, she is the grande dame of the herd.
Pedro is the oldest male in our collection. To tell him apart from the rest, look out for his long, lanky frame. He often nibbles the aquarists, as a way of asking for food.
Canola was hand-raised by our aquarists when she was not observed to suckle. Every three hours in her first three months, Canola was bottle-fed a special mixture of puppy formula and goat milk, infused with canola oil, hence her name.
Manatees spend 6–8 hours a day feeding on submerged and floating aquatic vegetation, which contain large amounts of roughage. Our manatees chomp on similarly high-fibre and low-calorie Chinese cabbage, banana leaves and elephant grass.
They are known as sea cows because they spend half of the day grazing on sea grass and aquatic plants. A manatee's daily food intake is typically 4–7% of its body weight. A 500kg manatee would eat 20–35kg of food in a day.
Vulnerable
At high risk of extinction in the wild
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plant and animal species.
Unknown risk of extinction
At relatively low risk of extinction
Likely to become vulnerable in the near future
At high risk of extinction in the wild
At very high risk of extinction in the wild
At extremely high risk of extinction in the wild
Survives only in captivity
No surviving individuals in the wild or in captivity