00:00We're in Three Sister Springs in Crystal River, Florida, and I'm going to tell you five things that you should know about manatees.
00:14Number one, manatees have pensile lips, which functions as a hand.
00:27That's how manatees are able to grab what they eat by these muscles in their face that basically act like a hand when they feed and when they even nozzle with each other.
00:36Number two, manatees and elephants share a common ancestor.
00:46That's why manatees have fingernails.
00:48And if you actually do an x-ray of a manatee flipper, you're going to see five fingers inside the fin.
00:58Number three, manatees actually have marching molars, teeth that march forward because they never stop growing.
01:05When their teeth wear out, by eating all that abrasive plants with sand in it, they wear out, but they're able to grow teeth for life.
01:13Elephants also grow many teeth, but not as many as a manatee can grow throughout its whole lifetime.
01:18Number four, manatees have the longest lungs in the animal kingdom when it comes to how long lungs are in ratio and in proportion to their bodies.
01:27That allows manatees to reach the surface by barely twitching a little, just a bare move for them to reach the surface.
01:34And no one is better at buoyancy than manatees.
01:42And number five, manatees have whisker-like hairs all around their body, known also as tactile hair,
01:49that allows them to sense everything around them in complete pitch darkness.
