Dugongs share the common name of 'sea cow' along with their manatee cousins. They reach approximately 10 feet long (3m) and 880 pounds (400kg) and are the only marine mammals that are almost exclusively plant eaters. When food is scarce they also eat algae. They love sea grass and eat around 55 pounds (25kg) of it in an average day. Coast walkers can often see the trail left by a grazing dugong and many scientists attribute abundant growth and regeneration of the grasses to dugong grazing. Dugong's eyesight is poor but they use their sensitive bristles in identifying sea grass, the bristles grow coarsely on their face. A dugong will crawl onto dry land to eat as can be seen below.

Hearing is a fine art for dugongs; communication is like their cousins with chirps around the 1 - 8 kHz range. At the lower end of this scale, about 1.2 kHz, dugongs give off what can only be called a bark that it uses pretty much as a dog would. Most chirping is noticed between mother and calf.

Swimming is achieved with their tail that is fluked like a dolphins, they use their flippers for balance and turning rather like rudders. Like the manatee, a dugong moves with the graceful slowness that exudes a hidden beauty on the eye of the beholder. Almost captivating, this action expresses such gentleness, anyone who takes the time to stop and really look, is captivated by this beauty forever. They cannot hold their breath for long under water, this is especially true if they try to swim fast.

Their colouration is grey-bronze and is noticeably darker on their underside. Although similar to a manatee, there are some differences, not least the smoothness of their skin. The head is also distinguishable as different, though obviously related. It is widely believed that male dugongs grow tusks but females do not. In fact all dugongs grow tusks, in the female population these are smaller and often don't break through the skin until the animal grows older. Males use their tusks for mating debates!

Although dugongs have a long life (70 years typically), a female doesn't sexually mature until she reaches ten years old and she wouldn't normally conceive beyond seventeen years of age. Only one calf is conceived at a time and gestation is the same as a manatee at thirteen months. At birth a calf must surface immediately to breath, the mother always goes into clear water for this event to avoid the tangled sea grasses. This occurs in the autumn and shallow water is chosen. The new arrival feeds from its mother like its manatee cousin and stays with mum for about eighteen months. Females typically go three years before breeding again.

Dugongs hold great spiritual and cultural importance to many aboriginal peoples and only selected hunters are honoured with capturing the animal. Their meat is treasured and feasted on at such events as important weddings and funerals etcetera. Dugong meat is high status and trading it offers the seller a respect of the highest order. However...

With an excess of 100,000 dugongs in existence, it is easy to forget that this is a level that signals danger. This figure may seem gloriously high to those trying desperately to save the manatee, but the truth is that this cousin is also an endangered species with smaller numbers occurring annually. Even aboriginals who live within the area of Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park recognise this problem and are becoming involved in a management process to save their sea cow from extinction.

Below are three link tabs lined up across the page. Two are an artists impression of the Steller's Sea Cow and choosing one of them will either take you back to the manatee page or to the site index. The centre tab says map on it and is a thumbnail of a map from the web site of the Save the Manatee Club in Florida. Clicking on this will take you to a large scale version that shows sirenian habitations globally. Finally, the dugong with 'more' written on it is a link to an Australian Government page all about dugongs. Most of the information and images used here are from this resource.