1. Manatee in French Guiana.

2. Length: from 8 to 13 feet. Weight: from 440 to 1300 pounds. Lifespan: from 20 to 60 years. Class: Mammalia. Order: Sirenia. Family: Trichechidea. Genus: Trichechus. Species: manatus. Passport

3. Who I am ? My grey skin is thick and hairless except near the lips. I am a big aquatic mammal. My body is elongate. Due to my head, small but large, they called me sometimes « sea cow ». I have got small eyes and two holes for the ears. My upper lip is big and hairy. My tail looks like a palette. The forelegs have got nails flattened. They are used as fins.

4. Where I live? I live in the shallow water of the Atlantic ocean, from Florida to French Guiana.

5. How I live? I live in hot water. I die if the temperature is below 20°C. I am diurnal and nocturnal. I eat at night. I am resting the day floating on the water surface as a wreck or an old punctured tire. I swim with my tail but my baby uses its fins.

6. My courtship display. The location of the mating is generally calm, shallow (handle, streams, lagoons...) and the framework must offer relief for animals to rub leave traces olfactory of their passage. It is not uncommon to see them sniffing out each other. The period when females is on heat do not exceed two days. They become polyandrous: the manatee female can copulate succesively with 6 to 8 males. When a female is in oestrus, a group of swains try to seduce her. The winer is the most lusty. Belly against belly, erected vertically near the surface, the two partners mate for ten minutes. Our sexual maturity begun between 5 and 8 years.

7. What I eat? The plants I eat use my teeths. But they are replaced all the time. I am herbivorous. I eat seaweeds and floating or submerges herbs.

8. Am I protected? We are a protected species, but we are less and less numerous because of the Men, their house, their waste, their boats which kill a big number of us with their propellers.

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