Wildlife
Amazonian manatees live in freshwater and are found, as their name suggests, in the Amazon River and its tributaries. They eat prodigious amounts of aquatic plants, consuming up to 8% of their own body weight every day. In the dry season, when manatees are forced to leave smaller watercourses as they shrink, they may fast for several weeks, surviving on fat reserves.
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Human help
Amazonian manatees need all the helpers they can get if they are to survive.
Amazonian manatees need all the helpers they can get if they are to survive.
Manatee magic
Local school children may hold the key to the manatee's future.
Local school children may hold the key to the manatee's future.
Orphaned manatees
Round the clock care prepares manatee babies for the wild.
Round the clock care prepares manatee babies for the wild.
The Amazonian manatee can be found in a number of locations including: Amazon Rainforest, South America. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
The following habitats are found across the Amazonian manatee distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Vulnerable
Population trend: Decreasing
Year assessed: 2008
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
The Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis) is a species of manatee of the order Sirenia. It is found living in the freshwater habitats of the Amazon Basin in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, and Venezuela. Its color is grey, but sometimes appears to be a brownish grey. It has thick, wrinkled skin, and is almost hairless, but has "whiskers" around its mouth. It lacks significant predation, other than being occasionally hunted by humans.
An almost unique feature (amongst mammals) of the manatee is the constant replacement of molar teeth; new teeth enter at the back of the jaw and replace old and worn teeth at the front. The order's closest relatives, the elephants, also have teeth that get replaced, but have only a limited set of these replacement teeth.
The Amazonian manatee is the second-smallest species of manatee after the recently discovered dwarf manatee. It may reach a length of 2.8 m (9.2 ft). Females are typically larger than males, and can weigh 360 to 540 kg (790 to 1,200 lb). Unlike the West Indian manatee, it lacks nails on the end of most flippers.
Recently, a closely related, but far smaller species, the dwarf manatee (Trichechus pygmaeus), has been described from Brazil by Marc van Roosmalen. Called the peixe-boi anão in Brazilian Portuguese, it is about 130 cm (4.3 ft) long and lives in fast-flowing streams. Its validity has later been questioned, with some believing it to be an immature Amazonian manatee.
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Lakes and ponds
Marsh
Shallow seas
Rivers and streams
Swamp
Adapted to swimming
Herbivorous
Nocturnal
Social
Viviparous