That manatee was in better shape than the previous two and was classified as a condition Code 3. It is not yet clear to which subspecies animals stranded or captured in Texas belong, so a brief overview will be given of the species T. manatus only. The tail is rounded and paddle-shaped. The flippers are very flexible and have three to four fingernails. A single teat is present in the fold of skin at the base of each flipper.
Manatees have no dorsal fin or dorsal ridge.
The wrinkled skin is weakly covered with short, colorless hairs. The body is uniformly gray which is frequently broken with white scars, algae, and barnacles. The bones are extremely dense and may have an important function as ballast to compensate for the positive buoyancy of their large lungs and the intestinal gas generated during the digestion of plant cellulose.