The national animal of Cabo Verde is the manatee. This large aquatic mammal is found in the country’s surrounding waters and thus has become an important national symbol. They embody gentle peace and wisdom and in Cabo Verde they are official and unofficial symbols of many national values.
Manatees have become famous worldwide and beloved for their gentle giant nature.
It is no surprise that a country to which it is native should choose to make it a national symbol.
Manatees are fascinating and endearing creatures, so let’s find out more about these semi-mythical sea creatures.
What is the national animal of Cabo Verde?
The national animal of Cabo Verde is the manatee.
Manatees are fully aquatic marine mammals that, like whales or dolphins, never come on to the surface but still need to breathe air.
They are also sometimes known as the sea cow.
They are herbivorous and eat marine plants growing on the seabed of the shallow water.
They eat as many as 60 different species of freshwater and saltwater plants.
There are three extant species of manatee today: the Amazonian manatee, the West Indian manatee, and the West African manatee.
They are known for their large size, measuring up to 13 feet long and weighing as much as 1,300 pounds.
Females tend to be larger than the males.
The origin of their name is not entirely clear; some believe it is connected to the Latin manus meaning “hand,” or to the pre-Columbian Taíno manati meaning “beast”.
They are well known for their prehensile upper lips which are large and flexible and very helpful for gathering food as well as social interaction and communication.
They are social animals though apart from a mother raising young, they are generally solitary though they are not aggressive to other members of their own species usually.
They tend to breed once every couple of years, with a gestation period of about a year.
There is usually then 12 to 18 months of weaning before the young becomes fully independent.
They spend around half of their day sleeping and the other half grazing.
They need to come up for air at intervals usually of less than twenty minutes.
They are quite intelligent and show understanding of discrimination tasks and signs of associative learning.
Like many other mammals of their size, they also have very good long-term memory.
Their social interactions are not as well understood as they were once thought to be and are indicative of great intelligence.
Why is the manatee the national animal of Cabo Verde?
There are many things about manatees which are seen to represent the values of Cape Verde.
The most important is the most noticeable thing about them: they are large, gentle, friendly creatures and for this reason have been seen to embody the people and values of the island nation.
Despite their great size they are not in any way a threat and in fact are often very curious about people and keen to interact.
Beyond that, they are simply seen to embody the nation’s natural beauty and landscape.
Obviously, aquatic animals like this are often very important to the spirit of an island nation and few animals in the water surrounding Cabo Verde are as striking and impressive as the manatee is.
Thus they are seen as the very image of not only the nation’s people, but also its stunning natural beauty.
Another factor that often influences the choice is conservation status.
Manatees are profoundly threatened by human activity like the loss of their habitat, so making them the national animal is a good way to bring attention to the animal and their plight.
This is another reason why the manatee is the national animal of Cabo Verde.
Why are manatees so friendly?
Manatees, as you may not be surprised to learn, have no natural predators; they are simply too large to be threatened.
For this reason, they have never needed to develop much of a sense of threat detection or just generally needed to be particularly wary of other animals.
This has made them very docile.
On the other hand, their mammal intelligence also makes them very curious about things by nature.
This means that they are often curious about humans and want to investigate them.
They are friendly because they no reason not to be, then, and because they are naturally curious.
Are manatees and dugongs the same?
Manatees and dugongs are not the same, although they do look very similar.
The easiest way to tell them apart is by their tails.
Manatees have paddle-like tails, which are essentially just one large, uninterrupted organ.
Dugongs, on the other hand, have fluted tails that look much more like the tail of a whale or a dolphin.
Dugongs also have a much more pronounced muzzle, with its lips flared outwards.
The skin of a manatee is very rough whereas the skin of a dugong is smoother, again more like a dolphin or whale–at least in appearance.
So, making sure you aren’t getting them mixed up with the similar but distinct species dugong, the national animal of Cabo Verde is the gentle giant manatee.
They are seen as keystones of the local aquatic ecosystem and thus play an important role in both the literal and symbolic life of this island nation.
Manatees are among the most important animals of Cabo Verde.