Length, up to 15 feet. Up to 1,900 pounds. The West Indian manatee can be found in coastal waters and connecting rivers from Virginia around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea to Brazil. They inhabit shallow coastal waters, bays, estuaries lagoons and rivers.
Manatees are able to move freely from saltwater to freshwater.
They often congregate at sources of warm water such as hot springs and power plant discharges. Manatees have nomadic tendencies, pausing in areas that supply their needs and then moving on. Their closest modern relatives according to biochemical studies, include the elephant and aardvarks. Approximately 2,600 manatees remain in the wild. People have hunted manatees for food as well as for their hides, oil and bones.