Floridas manatees are actually relative newcomers, historical research suggests

Manatees, long considered among Florida’s most beloved and enchanting inhabitants, are not native at all, and only came to the Sunshine state for warm temperatures and clear blue waters like any other visitor, researchers have found. The surprise revelation by scientists at the University of South Florida (USF) and George Washington University (GWU) upends decades of thinking about the origins of the threatened species, once plentiful around the Florida peninsula, the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. The finding could also offer a pathway to survival of the creatures known as sea cows, of which fewer than 9,000 are believed to

Read Full Article