MANATEE, an aquatic mammal or "sea cow' of the order Sirenia (q.v., for general structure), several species of which inhabit the fresh waters along the eastern coasts of trop ical America and of western Africa. The body is somewhat seal-like in shape, reaches a length of 8 or 10 feet, has a large round head with bristly, tumid lips, no apparent neck, no exter nal ears, the forelimbs converted into paddles, no hind limbs, and the tail spade-shaped, like that of a beaver. The thick wrinkled skin is blackish, and almost hairless, but a coat of short, seal-like fur clothes the foetus, indicating descent from furry ancestors. Structurally the manatee differs from other sirenians in having only six cervical vertebra, and in the large num ber of molar teeth, which apparently go on creasing indefinitely during the animal's the suggestion being, as Beddard points out, that they are worn away by the attrition resulting from so much sand being mixed with the daily food. The cleft lip to be mentioned hereafter is also a generic peculiarity. The manatees are stupid, gentle, defenseless and harmless crea tures, showing great affeotion for their young, one or two in number, which are nursed at pec toral udders, often while the mother stands erect upon her tail enfolding the licalvee with her broad arms. They never come ashore, but secrete themselves amid aquatic vegetation, where the only enemies they need fear are the larger alligators and the jaguar. Their food
consists of fresh-water weeds and their roots, and these are procured by means of the curious form of the upper hip: °this is split in two, and the two halves, which are furnished with strong bristles, can play upon each other like the points of a pair of forceps." This cleft-lip is only suggested in the case of the dugong, but the foetus of that animal shows the structure plainly, indicating that the manatee is the more primitive form of the two. The flesh is excel lent for food. The American manatees have been nearly exterminated. They formerly abounded in the Indian River and other marshy waters about southern Florida, but by the end of the 19th century had been reduced to a small, carefully protected band near Biscayne Bay in the Miami River. They still survive in small numbers along the coast of the Carrihean Sea and about the mouths of the Orinocco. The Florida manatee is called by American zoologists Manatus latirostris, and is regarded as different from those of Central and South America, long known as M. americanus. The African species is M. senegalensis. Consult Beddard, 'Mam mals' (1901) ; Alston, Centrali-Amer icana) (1875); 'Standard Natural History' (Vol. V, 1885) ; Townsend, C. H., 'Notes on the Manatee) (in New York Zoological Soci ety's Eighth Annual Report, New York 1904).