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| Sea Cow or Mermaid? |
May 25, 2003.
By Professor Fabio Cupul
University of Guadalajara Puerto Vallarta Campus
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Surely as children, we all got very
excited with the fantastic tales of strange beings whose
bodies blended the effigy of a woman with that of a
fish with silvery scales. We also heard that the beautiful
seductive songs of those anthropomorphic beings, better
known as mermaids, were the scourge of sailors in ancient
times who, upon hearing them, were seduced and led to
their death.
People who have had the fortune
to observe a mermaid comment that its face has Neanderthal
traits (a blend between monkey and man), its head is
crowned with hair whose texture resembles that of seaweed,
the eyes have a disturbing similarity to those of a
fish while the ears look more like those of bears.
The presence of mermaids has been
noted throughout nearly all the oceans of the world.
In that regard, Greek historian Pliny wrote of various
sightings in the Gulf of Cadiz (in the year 77 A.D.)
For his part, navigator Christopher Columbus confirmed
having seen three mermaids on the coast of Haiti, adding
in his report that they were not as “beautiful
as he had heard because they had faces like men”.
 Nevertheless,
despite the fact that these stories about mermaids border
on fantasy, if we read between the lines we can discover
the fascinating image and natural history of a large
and gentle mammal that spends all its life in the water,
and that has existed for 60 million years: the manatee.
Manatees and their relatives, the
dugones, are members of the biological family known
as Sirenia (thus the word siren, mermaid) and, as we
have seen, sailors throughout the centuries have mistaken
them with the not so beautiful sirens. There are four
different species, or classes, of sirenids: the dugón,
the West Indian manatee, the manatee of West Africa
and the Amazon manatee. There was also a fifth type
of sirenid in the Bering Sea, it was called Steller’s
Sea Cow, but as it was hunted indiscriminately, it became
extinct some 230 years ago.
The West Indian manatee (Trichechus
manatus) lives in our country as well as in the United
States, the Caribbean, Central America and the northeastern
countries of South America including Venezuela and northern
Brazil. This is a large-sized mammal (thus its name
of “sea cow”) with a solid compact body
whose forearms have been modified into fins.
The manatee has no rear limbs (feet)
but it does have a strong tail flattened in a horizontal
position, wide and oar-shaped, which helps propel it
through the canals of coastal lagoons, rivers or along
the coastlines where it often lives. Adults measure
2.5 to 4 meters in length and can weigh over 360 Kg.
Its skeleton is massive and its skin
is thick, wrinkled, resistant and nearly hairless except
for a very few whiskers along the upper lip. Its round
head is doted with a small mouth and a short snout.
It has no ears and a very short neck. As mammals, the
females breast feed their young (they only have one
offspring every three or four years) with two teats
located on their pectoral side.
They’re herbivores which means
they only eat plants. Plantations of marine grasses
and lilies represent important feeding spots for them.
Although they eat mostly marine plants, they prefer
to eat algae and crustaceans. They also spend most of
their time feeding, consuming up to 50 Kg (110 lbs)
of vegetation in a single day.
 Manatees
are not territorial, they are not aggressive and they
do not fight among themselves. They are extremely gentle
animals. As they have no natural enemies, they form
groups with no regard to sex or age. Their groups do
not have leaders or any defined social structure. They
spend their time on social activities that involve pursuits,
charging each other and sometimes slide-surfing atop
of the waves. Manatees are silent animals though they
are able to produce high-toned squeals to communicate
situations of fear, aggressiveness or happiness and
thus keep in touch with their companions while they
are feeding or traveling.
Every year there are more and more
people living near the coastal zones, home of the manatees,
always reducing their habitats. This loss of feeding
grounds and reproduction spaces is the greatest danger
to their future survival.
Other dangers come from people driving
their boats carelessly or too fast. Manatees are not
fast enough to get out of the way and they are often
killed or seriously wounded by the boat hulls and the
sharp blades of their propellers. Additionally, pollution
is wiping out the marine plants on which they feed.
We must hope that people will become
conscious of how fragile those magnificent animals are,
thus ensuring that their presence in this world will
never become imaginary, like that of those magical beings
inspired by them.
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