AnAge entry for Trichechus manatus

Lifespan, ageing, and relevant traits

Laboratory studies show that males are physiologically capable of mating when they are 2-3 years old. In the wild, however, they appear to reach full sexual maturity at the age of 9-10 years [0443]. Manatees may also feature some form of continuous tooth development [0002]. One 56 year old male was still alive in captivity [0671]. Another specimen was estimated to be 59 years old in the wild [0434].

Life history traits (averages)

Metabolism

References

[0671] Richard Weigl (2005), Longevity of Mammals in Captivity; from the Living Collections of the World
[0443] Ronald Nowak (2003), Walker's Marine Mammals of the World
[0610] Ernest (2003), Life history characteristics of placental non-volant mammals
[0434] Ronald Nowak (1999), Walker's Mammals of the World
[0441] William Burt et al. (1998), A Field Guide to Mammals
[0455] Virginia Hayssen et al. (1993), Asdell's Patterns of Mammalian Reproduction: A Compendium of Species-Specific Data
[0002] Caleb Finch (1990), Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome
[0433] McNab (1988), Complications inherent in scaling the basal rate of metabolism in mammals, PubMed
[0680] Wootton (1987), The effects of body mass, phylogeny, habitat, and trophic level on mammalian age at first reproduction
[0731] Zullinger et al. (1984), Fitting sigmoid equations to mammalian growth curves

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