WHAT DO MANATEES EAT?
Manatees have a huge verity of food even though they only eat vegtibals.If you follow a manatee you will see they eat all kinds of vegetation. They eat manatee grass,turtle grass, sea grass shoal grass, different species of algae, mangrove leaves, and red mangrove seedlings and all this is only in salt water. In fresh water they eat hidrilla vericillata, more algae, and water hyacinths. They don’t stop there. Manatees will haul themselves out of the water and eat grass. They will also eat leaves and acorns off of branches. With all this manatees have been known to eat over 60 different species of plants. The adult manatee eats over 100 lbs. in 1 day but the baby, who is growing, eats 1,200 lbs. each day! With all this you would think they eat every thing except meat but they can’t eat blue - green algae because it contains natural toxins.
The newborns drink their mothers milk. The nipple were the milk comes out of is located under the armpit.
