It curves and turns a thousand different ways, endlessly interesting and graceful to behold. When you look inside the flipper and tail, it becomes even more interesting. First, female manatees have their mammary glands at the base of their pectoral fins. Often, when a manatee calf nurses, the mother s flipper carefully surrounds the baby s head. Sometimes, manatee mothers will roll onto their backs in shallow water while nursing.
Flippers contain an elaborate bone structure, much like a human hand.
The pectoral fins are strong, with powerful but delicate muscles to control the angle in the water for navigation. The pectoral fins flexibility also allows manatees to scratch and to grasp and hold food while eating. Tails have almost no bones they are fan-shaped arcs of thick manatee skin, supported by powerful muscles that connect to the chevron bones of the spine and allow the tail to exert great force in the water while remaining extremely flexible. One of the most interesting features of pectoral fins and tails is the heat exchange system of blood vessels. See Body Temp .