DIET
Manatees eat over 60 different freshwater vegetables ( e.g. floating hyacinth, pickerel weed, alligator weed, water lettuce, hydrilla,musk grass, mangrove leaves etc)
And saltwater plants (e.g. sea grasses, shoal grass, manatee grass, turtle grass, widgeon grass, sea clover, and marine algae). Using their divided upper lip.
An adult manatee will commonly eat up to 10%–15% of their body weight (about 50 kg) per day. Consuming such an amount requires the manatee to graze for up to a long seven hours a day.
To be able to cope with the high levels of cellulose in their plant based diet, manatees use fermentation to help with the digestion process.
The lips use seven muscles to tear at plants. Manatees use their lips and front flippers to move the plants into the mouth. The manatee does not have front teeth, however, behind the lips, on the roof of the mouth, there are dense, ridged pads.
These ridges, and the manatee's lower jaw, tear through ingested plant material.