Christopher Columbus was the first European to report seeing a manatee in the New World. Manatees are not fish, however, but marine mammals. Most adult manatees are about 10 feet long and weigh 800 to 1,200 pounds, although some larger than 12 feet and weighing as much as 3,500 pounds have been recorded.
Hair is distributed sparsely over the body.
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 somer-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.