Welcome Dugong! (Dungong dugon) are found in Indo-Pacific waters, the largest population occurring in Australia. It is one of four species in the order Sirenia along with manatees. 🧜🏼‍♀️ Dugongs are thought to be the inspiration for mermaids! With their long bodies, fluked tail and graceful movements, sailors reported seeing half women-half fish creatures of haunting beauty. Dugongs eat just one thing- sea grass! They graze on underwater meadows with their specialised bristle teeth. They can eat up 30kg of sea grass per day, making them very important in maintaining the sea floor ecosystem. Dugongs are very calm, while they’re excellent swimmers with streamlined bodies for speed, they prefer to just slowly glide about and chill. They are air-breathing marine mammals, needing to come to the surface for oxygen. They can hold their breath up to 10 mins in a dive! Dugongs are considered vulnerable to extinction, their major threats being habitat loss - degradation of the sea grass beds they like to eat, as well as fishing nets.
Here we see our Dugong with their fishy friend and some sea grass snacks.
For every Dugong sold in the pre-sale I’ll be giving $20 to Australian Marine Conservation Society marineconservation.org.au for the amazing work they do protecting marine life! 🐋