Little-known facts about the manatee

mnatee.jpg

  • Strictly speaking, the manatee is not a fish, although it is often mistaken for a mermaid, which is half fish. Historians think at least one of the three mermaids sighted by Columbus was actually a manatee.

  • Severely reduced populations excessive hunting yadda-yadda.
  • Manatees are both diurnal and nocturnal, so logically they never sleep.
  • They are only weakly social, with few friends. The only lasting bond is between a cow and her calf, and nothing flatters a manatee more than being told that its offspring resemble it strongly.
  • Manatees are prone to intense lower back pain, and males have been sighted in front of toilets, clinging to the windowsill with tears in their eyes and their dicks hanging helplessly from their pajamas, waiting for a nasty spasm to pass.
  • Manatee are prone to melancholy, which is okay, and depression, which they usually fight with exercise, although if they have sore backs they’re fucked because the muscle relaxants they take for it have side effects including: suicidal depression, irritability, constipation, amnesia, fatigue, insomnia and dizzyness
  • The manatee often deals with conflict by withdrawing, to the extent that you can enter a house where the manatee lives and yet notice no evidence of its presence even though it’s right there talking to you.
  • Driving to work through 22 degree water at a depth of 6 meters, the only sounds audible to a manatee are Mongolian throat-singing, which provides great comfort, and a high-pitched whistling sound, which could be the throat singing or something wrong with the car.
  • Manatees crush vegetation with their molars, because molars are the only teeth they have.

6 responses to “Little-known facts about the manatee

  1. Also, the noises that manatees make in the water sound like ropes creaking together, like someone is swinging in a hammock. Or, manatees like lounging in underwater hammocks. Whichever.

  2. i’ve always really liked manatees, what with their Mongolian throat-singing and all. i think this is why the manatees, especially male ones who suffer back spasms and depression, always win a special place in me old black heart. it’s not pity, cos pity is bad. is it empathy? well, no, one would have to be a basically caring and unselfish person for that, so that bars me… well, whatever it is, i like the manatee. he’s a pretty special guy.

  3. I disagree slightly. In my experience when manatees are sitting right in front of you their presence is extremely powerful.

  4. D

    As is their body odor.

  5. Paul

    I love manatees…

    Usually with tartar sauce and a toasted bun…

  6. ky

    Thanks for your blog. I was feeling desperate and sad and sleepy, and now I feel slightly less-so.