(1) Farting just like humans do
Manatees fart in the water to maintain their buoyancy. This allows them to swim deeper in the water by getting rid of the extra gas in their body.
(2) Endless growing of teeth
Manatees grow new teeth all their lives where the old teeth at the front of their mouth are continuously replaced with the new set of teeth that grow at the back of their mouth. Interesting, manatees are similar to 1-2 year old children as both only have 6 teeth in their mouth. However, while children continue growing more teeth, manatees maintain this number of teeth at any given time.
(3) Relaxed lifestyle
Manatees spend around half of the day sleeping underwater, while going to the surface to take breaths at regular intervals of shorter than 20 minutes. They lung capacity is much larger than humans as 90% of the air in their lungs is replaced compared to 10% in humans when they take a breath.
(4) Slow eaters
A single meal that manatees eat takes about a week to be fully digested! Due to their low metabolic rate, they eats tons of food each day, which makes up around a tenth of their own body weight. Imagine a 50kg man eating 5kg of food everyday – that’s around 33 apples in one single day!
(5) Growing mould literally
Manatees swim at such a slow speed that many of them have algae or barnacles growing on their back. To a passing tropical fish, is time for free lunch!
