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The perfect Father's Day gift: a manatee By MARK FREEMAN For those wondering what to get that overweight, over-eating, lazy couch potato for Father's Day: How about an overweight, over-eating, lazy couch potato? The Florida-based Save the Manatee Club is offering just that for a truly unusual present for Father's Day on Sunday. KNOW YOUR MANATEE Name: From the Haitian word "manati." The scientific genus name, Trichechusis, is Latin for hair. Size: Adults are known to exceed 13 feet and 3,500 pounds, but average 10-12 feet long and 1,500-1,800 pounds. Ages: Can be 60 years or more. Dead manatees are aged by counting the growth rings on their ear bones. Diet: Marine vegetation, like manatee and turtle grass, hydrilla, eelgrass, water hyacinth and water lettuce. Family tree: Descendants of four-footed land mammals. Known manatee fossils date back 60 million years worldwide, 45 million years in Florida. Swim facts: Can travel up to 20 mph in short bursts, but they usually putter along at 3-5 mph. However, they have been known to stay submerged for up to 20 minutes at a time. Senses: They see fairly well and hear very well, communicating with chirps, whistles or squeaks in the 3-5 kilohertz range. Dental hygiene: Teeth grow in the back of the jaw and wear down as they move forward, fall out and are replaced. Brain power: Manatees have a higher ratio of brain gray matter (where thinking occurs) to white matter than all other known mammals, including humans. But their intelligence levels are largely unstudied. -Source: Save the Manatee Club For $20, you can adopt a manatee and get an adoption certificate, underwater photo and life history of the manatee that is just right for your dad. A membership handbook also lays out everything your dad will ever want to know about manatees - like how they consume 10-15 percent of their body weight daily, without the human luxuries of refrigerators and pizza deliveries. "We've got some very macho-sounding manatees," says Nancy Sadusky, communications director at the club's Maitland, Fla., headquarters. "Brutus is an especially popular one for Father's Day," Sadusky says. "And we expect Whiskers to get a lot of adoptive parents for Father's Day. Kids like the name." In all, the 30 manatees open for adoption this year generate about 40,000 such sponsors, helping provide the lion's share of funding used to help promote and protect these venerable "sea cows," Sadusky says. Sadusky describes manatees as "animals your dad might relate to." They are large, gentle, slow-moving mammals that can exceed 13 feet in length and 3,500 pounds. A migrating species, manatees are found in the shallow estuaries and canals of the southeastern United States. They winter near warm-water sources such as natural springs or the discharge pipes from power plants. The West Indian manatees are listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Their U.S. numbers are estimated at 3,000, with their worst enemy being the propellers from motorboats. Most wild manatees bear several scars from boat collisions, and the scars are so common that they are used to identify individual manatees. The adoption program began in 1984. There were 31 manatees in the program until last month, when the carcass of Tithonus was found, Sadusky says. He was too decayed to determine a cause of death, and the club was careful to pass the news on to Tithonus' 5,000 adoptive parents before his death was publicly announced, Sadusky says. "It's always tough," she says, "when one of the adoptees go." If looking for manatees near Father's Day has a certain looking-for-my-lost-shaker-of-salt flavor, there's a good reason for it. The Save the Manatee Club was founded in 1981 by "Margaritaville" singer Jimmy Buffett and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, R-Fla. Most of the adoptable manatees return annually to a handful of state parks in South Florida. Twenty of them live in the wild and winter at the Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, while others live in a state wildlife park near Homosassa. And the final group of adoptable animals are five older, wild manatees that frequent the Tampa Bay area, sans the plaid pants, white belts and white shoes. Along with Whiskers and Brutus, other adoptable manatees have "manly" monikers such as Howie and Doc, and mysterious ones such as Merlin. And Lenny the manatee is known affectionately by its backers at the "couch-potato" manatee because - like dear ol' dad - he prefers relaxation to other forms of activity. For more information on the adopt-a-manatee program, telephone 1-800-432-5646, or check the club's Web site at www.savethemanatee.org. Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.