Manatee in Crystal River

Apparently, something I didn't know, was that the West Indian Manatee has called the gulf coast it's home. It's a very common sight to be walking around town, along the water, and seeing groups of manatee basking in the afternoon sunlight.



(They travel in pods, which is a large group of manatee, that you can see on the right)

Manatee are Herbivores (like me!) In an aquarium, it's common to see the manatee being fed lettuce, but here in the wild they mostly just munch on sea grass, freshwater plants, and other algae.
The manatees can be found in the warm waters of shallow rivers, bays, estuaries, and coastal rivers.



Numerous times upon watching the manatee, I have seen them "playing" in the water. They'll do barrel rolls and sometimes I've even seen younger manatee swim after one another. They are generally very (extremely) huge animals, and they tend to move rather slow. These gentle and cute manatees can weight up to 1,000 lbs or more, and are an average of 10+ ft. long! The females, quite surprisingly enough, are actually bigger than the males. It's uncommon to see them out of the water, but occasionally the manatee will swim to the top, exposing their nose to the surface to inhale air, before going back down.