the.com/sirenian
Manatees and dugongs: proof sailors at sea way too long will call anything a mermaid.
means An adjective (or noun for the order Sirenia) describing manatees, dugongs, and their relatives — slow, gentle, aquatic mammals that graze on sea grass.
from Traces back to the Greek Seirēn, the mythical mermaid-like creatures who sang sailors to their doom. Naturalists borrowed the name for this order of plump, whiskery sea mammals, supposedly because exhausted, moon-eyed sailors glimpsed them bobbing at the surface and mistook them for sirens — a tribute less to the animal's beauty than to how long those sailors had been at sea.
- closest relative
- elephants, not dolphins or seals
- diet
- strictly plants, hence the nickname sea cow
- buoyancy trick
- heavy bones act as built-in diving weights
- myth origin
- named after sirens despite zero resemblance