The Dugong
By: Erin Shuey

The Dugong is a marvelous animal! Did you ever hear of an mammal that lives in coastal waters, eats underwater grasses, and are related to the manatees? Or has brown, gray leathery skin and they’re referred to as the sea cow. Well if you keep on reading you’ll learn about one called the Dugong. You can learn the Dugong's Lifecycle, diet, birth, habitat, and the similarities and differences from Manatees. The Dugong has three interesting stages in life. The first step of a dugong’s life is when they are born. The mother will have her calf in warm, shallow water. The second stage of their life is becoming an adult. This stage occurs when they are about 9 to 17 years old, at this age they can also start reproducing. The last stage of their life is death. A Dugong’s average lifespan is 70 years, scientist …show more content…
One of the things that Dugongs eat are aquatic plants. Another thing that they eat are sea grasses. A Dugong can eat up to twenty pounds of food a day. They must have a big appetite to eat all that! Because of the amount of sea grass they eat people refer to them as the Sea Cow. A female Dugong can only give birth to one calf every five years. This takes place in warm, shallow coastal waters. Then immediately after they are born the calf can swim to the water surface and take its first breath. When a dugong calf is born they are about a meter in length and they weigh about 20 kg (about 44 pounds). The calf will usually stay with it’s mom till it is about 18 months old. The Dugong's habitat is the coastal waters of East Africa and Australia. Dugongs like the warm coastal waters that these oceans and seas provide. Dugongs stay in shallow water at the coast. This is because then they can get to the water surface quicker. A Dugong has to come to the surface every 6 minutes. They sometimes do this by standing on their tail and sticking their head out of the