Dugongs in Moreton Bay.



                      
Quick Links for our web site.
Home Page
Brisbane River
Wading Birds
Sea Turtles
Dugongs
Mangroves
Pollution
About Us
                          

Dugongs have a rounded head and large snout. They have poor eyesight and have small eyes. They find and grab their food by sensitive bristles that cover the lip of their snout. Dugongs usually grow tusks that emerge through the skin in adult males and old females. They use these tusks to fight other dugongs while mating. They have one flipper on either side of their body and are a brownish colour.

Dugongs eat sea grass and are the only plant  eating mammal that live their whole lives in the marine environment. Six hundred to seven hundred dugongs live in Moreton Bay Marine Parkland this is the only place in the world where large numbers of these creatures are found.
 
Dugongs are close relatives to the elephant. The Sea cow is another name for the Dugongs because they eat sea grass. Female dugongs don’t have their first calf until they are ten years old. They feed their calves by human-like teats on one of the flippers until it is eighteen months old. A dugong can live to seventy years old or more. The most likely place to find or spot a dugong  is in shallow sea grass areas but it’s hard to see them because they are very shy creatures.  








A dugong eating sea grass.









Moreton Bay