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Seagrass a day
theconversation.com
- Dugongs are primarily herbivorous, grazing on up to 30kg of seagrass a day. They eat both day and night, locating their food with the help of coarse, sensitive bristles on their upper lip.
www.barrierreef.org/the-reef/animals/dugong-facts
Dugongs are primarily herbivorous, grazing on up to 30kg of seagrass a day. They eat both day and night, locating their food with the help of coarse, sensitive bristles on their upper lip. These large creatures are found in warm water around coastlines, both north and south of the equator.
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This behavior is known as cultivation grazing and favors the rapidly growing, higher nutrient seagrasses that dugongs prefer. [95] Dugongs may also prefer to feed on younger, less fibrous strands of seagrasses, [96] and cycles of cultivation feeding at different seagrass meadows may provide them with a greater number of younger plants.
Dugongs graze on underwater grasses day and night, rooting for them with their bristled, sensitive snouts and chomping them with their rough lips. These mammals can stay underwater for...
- Dugong Diet: What Do Dugongs Eat?
- Dugong Habitat
- Mermaid Mythology
- Elephant relatives
Since dugongs are herbivores, their diet consists exclusively of seagrass. They are often referred to as “sea cows” because of their grazing habit below the waves. Dugongs live in very shallow, temperate water where seagrass flourishes, and they need to eat plenty of it to stay healthy. These animals tend to graze 24 hours a day, ferreting out seag...
These animals live predominantly in the Pacific and Indian oceans near the equator. They prefer tropical coastal regions. Although dugongs live mostly in Australia, these gentle giants also live near Madagascar, India, and Thailand. They live in the ocean but sometimes might find themselves moving up into the land, especially in areas where there i...
Dugongs might just be responsible for mermaid lore. Dugongs tend to travel in packs, and you can sometimes see them sunning themselves right above the waves. It’s possible and even likely that the earliest sailors mistook these shallow-water creatures for mermaids or sirens. Christopher Columbus famously mistook dugong’s relatives, manatees, for me...
Dugongs are mammals and share a common ancestry with other notable animal kingdom members, like elephants. The two creatures likely split paths 50 million years ago, say scientists, with elephants heading for the land and dugongs making their way towards the sea. Like elephants, dugongs are very social and have a well-developed sense of community, ...
Dugongs graze on a variety of seagrass species, preferring those that are higher in nutrient content. Dugongs use their bristled, muscular snouts to dig up seagrasses from the seabed. They can consume large quantities of seagrass daily, often leaving behind feeding trails on the seafloor.
- Mammalia (Mammals)
- Chordata
- Sirenia
Dugongs are large marine mammals often called sea cows due to their herbivorous diet and slow, gentle nature. They are related to both manatees and—surprisingly—elephants. They live in warm coastal waters from East Africa to Australia, grazing on underwater grasses as their main food source.
You’ll find dugongs, often called ‘sea cows,’ drifting gracefully through shallow coastal waters, expertly grazing on underwater meadows of seagrass. Equipped with sensitive bristles on their cleft, muscular upper lips, dugongs can locate and grasp seagrass in even the murkiest conditions.
