They’re Called Sea Cows for a Reason
As you all can probably tell by words like “cow” and “giant,” manatees are pretty big. The average adult manatee is about 10 feet (three meters) long and weighs between 800 and 1,200 pounds (363 to 544 kilograms).
Fun fact: It’s believed that Christopher Columbus—yes, that Columbus—mistook manatees for mermaids on one of his journeys to the Americas in 1493. Columbus was a bit taken aback, though, and told others that the mermaids were not as beautiful as they were said to be because “their faces had some masculine traits.”
