There are a number of mammals that live in the sea. They look like fish, but are mammals. These animals give birth and suckle their young. Whales, dolphins, manatees are all mammals that live in the sea.
The whale
Like all mammals, whales give birth to their young and have lungs. They come up to breathe through the spray holes on top of their heads. The blue whale is the largest animal on Earth: at birth it weighs nearly two thousand kilograms and is six meters long. At maturity, this whale can be up to thirty-three meters long and weigh one hundred and fifty thousand pounds (that’s as much as twenty-five elephants). Despite their weight, whales can swim very well, they can reach a speed of fifty kilometers per hour and even jump out of the water. Whales can stay underwater for almost two hours and can dive up to 500 meters deep. They eat very small shrimp (krill), which they catch by filtering enormous amounts of water with the baleen on their upper jaw. They are almost wiped out by whaling. Nowadays it is illegal to hunt whales, but unfortunately some countries still do. Besides humans, the whale’s only enemy is the killer whale, which attacks the boy.
The dolphin
In terms of intelligence, the dolphin is often compared to the chimpanzee. He almost constantly makes clicks and whistles to communicate with his peers and for the so-called “echolocation”. If the sound hits an obstacle, it reverberates and you get an echo. Based on these echoes, the dolphin knows which way to go, how to avoid an obstacle, but also how to catch prey (squid, shrimp or fish). His greatest enemy is a relative of his, namely the killer whale. A dolphin can stay under water for three to four minutes. When he sleeps, he stays fifty centimeters below the surface and comes up every thirty seconds to breathe without waking up. The dolphin is a social animal that lives in groups of tens or even hundreds of animals without a leader. Dolphins often come to the rescue of sick or injured dolphins or even humans.
The Manatee
The manatee is an aquatic mammal that eats plants. It can weigh more than six hundred kilos and grow to five meters long. Manatees mainly live in rivers and estuaries on the Atlantic Ocean in Africa and Latin America. They live in groups of a dozen animals and spend most of their time underwater eating plants and their roots. That is why they are also called “sea cows”. That name suits them better than “mermaid” and yet the manatee is at the base of the legends about the mermaid. Manatees, like cetaceans, have a hairless home and look a bit like a large seal, yet they are ungulates (meaning they belong to the same family as the horse). Manatees are very peaceful, they never fight and the couples stay together all their lives. Every three to five years, the female gives birth to a young, which stays with her for about two years.