Lecture 3/4

Question 1

Sirenians are most closely related to what two animals?

Answer 1

(Elephants and hyraxes)

Question 2

What are the two subspecies of the West Indian manatee?

Answer 2

(Florida and Antillean manatees)

Question 3

What species of manatee would you find near Australia and New Zealand?

Answer 3

(Dugong)

Question 4

What type of bones do manatees have?

Answer 4

(Pachyostotic → long bones do not have a marrow cavity; predisposes to fractures)

Question 5

Why are manatees predisposed to thoracic trauma which can disrupt their normal orientation in water?

Answer 5

(Because their lungs lie within the dorsal portion of their body with the diaphragm running horizontally below)

Question 6

Manatees are prone to cold/heat (choose) stress.

Answer 6

(Cold, low metabolic rate so unable to generate as much body heat to combat cold, will migrate to warmer areas in the winter)

Question 7

What is the food transit rate in manatees?

Answer 7

(1 week)

Question 8

(T/F) Manatee hair is sensory, not insulatory.

Answer 8

(T)

Question 9

(T/F) It is abnormal for manatees to have vessels in the cornea of their eye.

Answer 9

(F, it is normal)

Question 10

Manatees are herbivorous/omnivorous/carnivorous (choose).

Answer 10

(Herbivorous)

Question 11

Of the three main nutrients (fat, protein, carbohydrates), which is minimal in manatee milk?

Answer 11

(Carbohydrates, contains more fat and protein compared with the milk of other mammals, contains little to no lactose)

Question 12

Manatees are prone to chronic abscessation that is not necessarily secondary to trauma and is usually treated with surgical drainage and daily flushing, what is the most commonly found causative agent?

Answer 12

(Staph aureus)

Question 13

What is the normal nursing behavior of a manatee calf?

Answer 13

(Nurse for 3-5 minutes every 1-2 hours all day, every day)

Question 14

What are the seven different species of sea turtles?

Answer 14

(Kemp’s ridley, Olive ridley, loggerhead, leatherback, green, hawksbill, and flatback)

Question 15

What are the terms for the ventral and dorsal bony shells of sea turtles?

Answer 15

(Dorsal is the plastron and ventral is the carapace)

Question 16

Instead of teeth, what do sea turtles have?

Answer 16

(Ramphothecae, crushing jaws with keratinized sheaths)

Question 17

Do warmers or cooler egg temperatures produce female sea turtle hatchlings?

Answer 17

(Warmer is female, cooler is male)

Question 18

Why are leatherback sea turtles able to traverse colder seas when compared to other species of sea turtles?

Answer 18

(They use gigantothermy which is the enhanced ability to retain body heat as an individual’s surface area to volume ratio decreases, they have this ability because they are mesotherms)

Question 19

How do turtle’s manage their salt intake? Two answers.

Answer 19

(Have well developed lacrimal/salt glands that excrete salts and squeeze the salt from their ingested food with their muscular esophagus)

Question 20

(T/F) All of the sea turtle species are either threatened or endangered.

Answer 20

(T)

Question 21

What is indicated when a sea turtle has excessive epibiota?

Answer 21

(They likely have a chronic disease that has caused longer periods of reduced activity, allowing the turtle to become a ready host for barnacles and lots of other creatures)