West Indian manatee

The West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus) or "sea cow", also known as American manatee, is the largest surviving member of the aquatic mammal order Sirenia (which also includes the dugong and the extinct Steller's sea cow).

The West Indian manatee is a species distinct from the Amazonian manatee (T. inunguis) and the African manatee (T. senegalensis). Based on genetic and morphological studies, the West Indian manatee is divided into two subspecies, the Florida manatee (T. m. latirostris) and the Antillean or Caribbean manatee (T. m. manatus).[4][5] However, recent genetic (mtDNA) research suggests that the West Indian manatee actually consists of three groups, which are more or less geographically distributed as: (1) Florida and the Greater Antilles; (2) Mexico, Central America and northern South America; and (3) northeastern South America.[6][7]

The West Indian Manatee was placed on the Endangered Species List in the 1970s, when there were only several hundred left,[8] and it has been of great conservation concern to federal, state, private, and nonprofit organizations to protect these species from natural and human-induced threats like collisions with boats.[2] On March 30, 2017, the US Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced the federal reclassification of the manatee from endangered to threatened as the number of sea cows had increased to over 6,000.[8][9]