With stiff whiskers around its mouth, the manatee's face looks like a walrus without tusks. The manatee maneuvers through the water moving its paddle- like tail up and down and steering with its flippers. It is very agile for such a large animal, sometimes saulting and doing barrel rolls in the water. The manatee often rests suspended just below the water's surface with only the snout above water. It feeds underwater, but must surface periodically to breath.
Manatees are herbivores, meaning they eat only plants.
But they eat a great variety of aquatic plant species, including water hyacinth and hydrilla. Manatees must eat 4 to 9 percent of their body weight each day. To do this, they spend 5 to 8 hours a day eating. Manatees spend their lives moving between freshwater, brackish, and saltwater environments. They prefer large, slow- moving rivers, river mouths, and shallow coastal areas such as coves and bays.