Classroom lesson · Wildlife · 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau

African Manatee

A gentle giant of Guinea-Bissau's rivers and lagoons

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The African manatee is a large, slow-moving mammal that lives in rivers, lagoons, and coastal waters across West and Central Africa. In Guinea-Bissau, manatees glide through the Cantanhez rivers and the Bijagós lagoons, feeding on water plants and surfacing quietly to breathe. They are gentle, harmless animals — sometimes called 'sea cows' because of their peaceful, grazing way of life.

Tell me more

African manatees can grow to about three metres long and weigh up to 500 kg — about as much as a large horse. Their bodies are rounded and smooth, perfectly shaped for drifting slowly through the water. Two small front flippers help them steer, and a wide, flat tail — shaped like a paddle — propels them forward with gentle sweeps.

Manatees are mammals, which means they breathe air just like we do. They surface every few minutes to take a breath, then sink back below. When they are resting, they can stay underwater for up to 20 minutes without coming up. Their nostrils close tightly while they are submerged, then snap open the moment they surface.

Manatees eat only plants — mostly water hyacinths, grasses, and the leaves of mangrove trees floating at the surface. An adult can eat up to 8 per cent of its body weight in plants each day. That is a lot of chewing! Their large lips are very flexible and work like fingers to grab and pull at plants.

Because manatees are shy and quiet, they are easy to miss even when they are nearby. Local fishermen in Guinea-Bissau often know the quiet stretches of river where manatees are most likely to appear. They call them by local names and have observed their habits for generations. Conservation teams work with these communities to make sure manatee habitats stay undisturbed.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

01A manatee is more closely related to an elephant than to a dolphin. What does that tell you about the way scientists group animals?
02The manatee is shy and quiet — why might that make it hard to count how many there are in the wild?
03If a manatee eats 8% of its body weight every day in plants, what would that look like for a person of your weight? How much salad would you need?

Try this

Classroom activity

Children work in pairs to make a 'Wanted Poster' for the African manatee — not because it has done anything wrong, but because it needs to be found and protected! Include: size, what it eats, where it lives, why it is hard to spot, and one reason why it is important to protect it.

More about Guinea-Bissau

Other things that make Guinea-Bissau special

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