![]() They are big eaters, the ocean’s largest herbivore, they can measure almost 14 feet long and weigh as much as 3,000 pounds. They use their teeth to munch on seagrass and other plant life. Manatees have a mouthful of teeth but they don’t bite. A Big Toothy Grin-Open Wide.Chomp, Chomp… “That’s why, when winter arrives, they move to the warm spring-fed waters in Kings Bay and Three Sisters Springs, where the water temperature is a consistent 72 degrees.”ģ. “Without insulation, they can get cold stress in water below 68 degrees,” explained Joyce Palmer, manager of the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge. They may look fat, but their body mass is made up of mostly their stomach and intestines. They can hold their breath underwater for up to 20 minutes! Don’t try that at home, fellow mammals.ĭespite their blubbery size and shape, Manatees don’t have much blubber to keep warm. Manatees are also champion breath-holders. By comparison, their fellow mammal, the human, only replaces 10 percent of their air in one breath. And when they do-it’s a big one! Manatees replace 90 percent of the air in their lungs in one breath. ![]() The use their prehensile lips to grasp and pull food into their mouths similar to the way elephants use their trunks.Īlthough they live in water like fish, manatees, need to breathe air to survive, so they come to the surface frequently to take a breath. The manatee snout is a shrunken version of the elephant’s trunk. the elephant! They have very thick skin, sometimes over an inch thick, and even have three to four toenails, like the elephant. In fact, the manatees closest living relative is. Asian elephants also face threats from tourist attractions where people pay to ride on their backs or watch them paint pictures using their trunks.Ĭheck out more articles about awesome elephants! Read our interview with Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch to find out how she’s helping elephants, and learn how one young boy is taking action to save these incredible animals.Manatees are mammals, like walruses and seals, which they most closely resemble in shape, but they are not related. There are far fewer Asian elephants than there are African elephants. Many are killed by humans for their ivory tusks, because they’ve come into conflict with communities or simply for sport. Clever!ġ0) Sadly, elephants are in trouble. ![]() ![]() Elephants also dig waterholes and create footpaths, literally changing the landscape around them!Ĩ) In Mount Elgon National Park in Kenya, a group of elephants use their tusks to mine for salt in underground caves! They feel their way around with their trunks and eat the salts by breaking them off with their tusks.ĩ) Elephants have created their very own sunscreen! After a river or swamp bath, they’ll throw mud and sand up and over themselves to protect their skin from the hot, burning sun. These elephants live in the tropical forests of Africa’s Congo Basin. They have straighter tusks and more rounded ears than Savannah elephants.Ħ) These magnificent mammals spend between 12 to 18 hours eating grass, plants and fruit every single day! They use their long trunks to smell their food and lift it up into their mouth – yum!ħ) All that eating means one thing, gang, an awful lot of poo! Each elephant creates about one tonne of poo per week, which keeps the soil fertile and disperses tree seeds. A tusk-less adult elephant is likely to be a female Asian elephant.ĥ) Until recently, African Forest elephants were thought to be a subspecies of the African elephant, but new research discovered that they are actually a separate species entirely. Both male and female African elephants grow tusks, but only male Asian elephants grow them. Cool, huh?Ĥ) You can tell a lot about an elephant by looking at their tusks! Elephant tusks never stop growing, so enormous tusks can be a sign of an old elephant. Ask your parents to check out Nat Geo Kids magazine! (AD)ģ) There’s an easy way to tell the African elephants apart from their Asian cousins – their ears! African elephants have large ears shaped like the continent of Africa! Asian elephants’ ears are smaller and shaped like India.
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