We spent a morning at Sydney Aquarium – right on the waterfront, it doesn’t look very big from the outside – but it took us 4 hours to get round and we could easily have stayed longer!
One of the areas had a sign ‘dugongs’ and there was a queue ...we joined it to discover that, worldwide, only six dugongs are held in captivity and two of them were in front of us.
They look a lot like manatees and are the only survivng species of ‘sea-cow’ in the world. Dugong actually means ‘lady of the sea’
As you can see they have no fins or limbs, look a bit like a dolphin from above and a bit like an elephant in their face. We watched feeding time and they must have hoovered up sixteen cabbages.
Dugongs are hunted – the Japanese again! It’s now near extinction even though laws have been passed (some nations think they are exempt)
They live, if allowed to, for up to 70 years and can grow up to 2 metres – gentle giants really
Cave drawings have been discovered of dugongs, the drawings are over 5000 years old!!
My second favourite was the ‘leafy seahorse’ SO cool!
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