What does a dugong eat in human care? It’s a mystery tbh
Do they get different kinds, like iceberg for breakfast, romaine for lunch? Or is it one kind?
He eats mostly cos/romaine lettuce. He basically won’t eat anything else even though we try giving him other leafy greens for variation. Dugongs naturally eat sea grass but it’s a critically endangered plant species so we can’t harvest any for him. So when he was rescued and deemed unreleasable they gave him a choice and he chose the romaine lettuce. We think he likes the crunchy texture of the lettuce 🙂
Dugongs feed on the sea floor so we thread the lettuce through a weighted tray so it sinks to the bottom of the oceanarium and we switch the tray out with a fresh one every 10-15 minutes.
Thanks for answering 😀
QueerGalaxies 