: PBS LearningMedia
Last one until tonight. The episode takes place in Florida where the search is on for water-loving creatures called "sea cows". Allison doesn't believe them until she learns that they're really called manatees. We learn that this is a trend among us humans as we call koalas bears even though they're not, and we do the same thing for river wolves and parrotfish and wombats. Most of the episode however doesn't even touch on the manatees but instead on the other creatures that live in the Florida everglades: armadillos, rattlesnakes, many different types of birds including wood storks and great blue herons, and other animals such as water moccasins, alligators, and yellow ratsnakes. After all of that, we finally find the manatees who are big water-loving mammals that look as though they are a mixture of whale and walrus without tusks. Unfortunately, some evolutionary thought is sneaked in and we are "informed" of their relationship to elephants despite only coming up with two main similarities: both have 4 toenails and both eat vegetation. The manatees love for warm water is demonstrated by the existence of hot springs and the danger that speed boats pose to these big, mellow giants is also proven. A brief discussion by Ttark about the now-extinct stellar sea cow is also given in the episode and special stress is given to the immense size that the creatures had: 26 ft in length and over 4 tons in weight. Stellars even lived in the Bering sea waters. That wraps it up. I'll be back with more soon.
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