Dugong
Dugong dugon
The manatee's whale-tailed cousin, mowing seagrass meadows across the Indo-Pacific.
A dugong spends its days grazing underwater meadows of seagrass, leaving a bare trail behind it like a lawnmower. It looks a lot like a manatee, but its tail is shaped like a whale's. It can live for 70 years, and it gives birth only once every few years, which makes it slow to bounce back.
On the conservation status
Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (assessed in 2015, published in 2019). Some local groups are in worse trouble: a regional assessment found the dugongs of Palau and Japan's Ryukyu Islands Critically Endangered and East Africa's Endangered, while Australia's were rated Near Threatened.
- Length
- Up to 3 m (10 ft)
- Weight
- 400 kg (880 lb) or more
- Lifespan
- Up to 70 years
- Diet
- Seagrass, up to 30 kg a day
- Swimming speed
- About 10 km/h (6 mph)
- Home
- Warm coasts in about 40 countries
The good stuff.
A manatee with a whale's tail
Dugongs and manatees are sea cows, and they are cousins. The easy way to tell them apart is the tail: a manatee has a flat paddle, and a dugong has a notched fluke like a whale's.
Closer to elephants than to dolphins
Even though a dugong lives in the sea, its closest relatives are not whales or dolphins. They are elephants. Like elephants, dugongs are big, slow-growing plant eaters that live a long time.
A lawnmower that leaves a trail
A dugong pulls up whole seagrass plants, roots and all. Where it has fed, it leaves a bare winding track on the seafloor, and scientists can follow these feeding trails to see where dugongs have been.
Tusks like tree rings
Adult males have tusks. Scientists estimate a dugong's age by counting the growth layers in a tusk, in the same way you count the rings in a tree trunk.
Calves that suck their flippers
A calf drinks its mother's milk for 18 months or longer, often swimming just above her back. While it waits to be fed, it sucks on its flipper, a bit like a child sucking a thumb.
Slow to have babies
A mother carries her calf for about 13 to 15 months, and a female gives birth only once every 3 to 7 years. So when too many dugongs are lost, the group takes a very long time to grow back.
Wait, really?
- ✦
Dugongs sing to each other with chirps, whistles and barks that carry through the water.
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A newborn calf is already about 1.2 m (4 ft) long.
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It is the only plant-eating mammal that lives entirely in the sea.
What it sounds like
Chirps, whistles and barks. Dugongs call to each other all the time, and a mother and her calf stay in touch this way.
We haven't found a recording we're allowed to share yet, so for now this one is a description.
Where you might see one
Shallow, warm seagrass bays from East Africa to Australia. Northern Australia is the stronghold: Shark Bay in the west, and the Great Barrier Reef and Moreton Bay in the east.
The trouble
- Drowning in fishing nets
- Loss of seagrass from pollution, dredging and coastal building
- Boat strikes
- Hunting in some places
- Climate change and storms that damage seagrass
One real thing
Seagrass is the whole menu, so look after the places it grows: keep rubbish and chemicals out of drains and the sea. If you are ever on a boat in dugong waters, go slowly and keep a lookout.
More ways to helpYour field notes
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