{"id":20,"date":"2006-08-29T17:44:56","date_gmt":"2006-08-30T00:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=20"},"modified":"2008-08-05T10:16:24","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T14:16:24","slug":"mind-of-the-manatee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=20","title":{"rendered":"Mind of the Manatee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research on the manatee shows that it’s no dummy<\/a>. I especially loved the part about not liking fish and so being hard to motivate. Does that make them smarter than dolphins since they can’t be bribed so easily?<\/p>\n

The manatee, sluggish, squinty-eyed and bewhiskered, is more likely to have its rotund bulk compared to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a sweet potato,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d its homely, almost fetal looks deemed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prehistoric\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d terms applied by startled New Yorkers this month to a Florida manatee that made an unexpected appearance in the Hudson River.<\/p>\n

Cleverness is unhesitatingly ascribed to the dolphin. But the manatee is not seen leaping through hoops or performing somersaults on command, and even scientists have suspected it may not be the smartest mammal in the sea. Writing in 1902, a British anatomist, Grafton Elliot Smith, groused that manatee brains \u00e2\u20ac\u201d tiny in proportion to the animals\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bodies and smooth as a baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cheek \u00e2\u20ac\u201d resembled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the brains of idiots.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Far from being slow learners, manatees, it turns out, are as adept at experimental tasks as dolphins, though they are slower-moving and, having no taste for fish, more difficult to motivate. They have a highly developed sense of touch, mediated by thick hairs called vibrissae that adorn not just the face, as in other mammals, but the entire body, according to the researchers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 recent work.<\/p>\n

And where earlier scientists saw in the manatee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brain the evidence of deficient intelligence, Dr. Reep sees evolution\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shaping of an animal perfectly adapted to its environment.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

But he also suspects that rather than the manatee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brain being unusually small for its body, the situation may be the other way around: that its body, for sound evolutionary reasons, has grown unusually large in proportion to its brain.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

For now, the question of how intertwined the sensory abilities of manatees might be remains unanswered. Yet even what is known reveals a degree of complexity that argues against labeling them as sweet but dumb \u00e2\u20ac\u201d peaceable simpletons.<\/p>\n

Dr. Domning of Howard could not agree more.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re too smart to jump through hoops the way those dumb dolphins do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research on the manatee shows that it’s no dummy. I especially loved the part about not liking fish and so being hard to motivate. Does that make them smarter than dolphins since they can’t be bribed so easily? The manatee, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-k","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":61,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=61","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":0},"title":"Darwin lives!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Darwin the manatee that is. ST. AUGUSTINE, FL -- A male manatee, weighing half a ton, was released into the wild Friday in St. Johns County after a year long recovery from injury. ... Huey is a volunteer with Florida Fish and Wildlife. Almost exactly a year ago, Huey helped\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":664,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=664","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":1},"title":"Manatee Rescue","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's an adorable photo released by SeaWorld Orlando of an orphan manatee rescued in Ormond Beach. More manatee rescue information can be found here and here and here. \"This is the smallest manatee I've ever seen brought to SeaWorld,\" said Steve Lehr, assistant curator of animal care and a rescue\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":181,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=181","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":2},"title":"Of manatees and basketball","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Unfortunately, a Science Sunday's talk about manatees at the Florida Museum of Natural History faced stiff competition from NCAA basketball. Science Sunday pretty much lost. But a few hardy souls chose sea cows over basketball and the show went on. There were plenty of interesting facts: The manatee has an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Science in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=5"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":643,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=643","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":3},"title":"Manatee County learning science","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"My hat is off to Manatee County for having teachers participate in a series of classes on ways to teach science! The classes, sometimes held at a Bradenton coffee shop or at the South Florida Museum, are being offered to Manatee science teachers this summer through a partnership with Lockheed\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=643#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1738,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1738","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":4},"title":"11.11.12 This & That","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"-- Will mandatory biology and geometry exams keep high school students from graduating? New tests could prevent thousands from graduating: The passing rate on Florida's new biology and geometry exams \u00e2\u20ac\u201d now must-pass tests for a high school diploma \u00e2\u20ac\u201d would be under 60 percent if a proposed scoring system\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1846,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1846","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":5},"title":"Talk in Bradenton: Misconceptions Around Evolution","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"April 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry for the short notice, but here is an upcoming event of possible interest to folks in the area: Manatee Democratic Club (formerly the Southeast Manatee County Democratic Club) Thursday, April 18, Luncheon at the Peridia Golf and County Club, 4950 Peridia Blvd., Bradenton, beginning at 11:30 AM. Joseph Kerata,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}