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"Fitt, William"

 
 
 Fitt, William (detail)
   
2020
Florida manatees Trichechus manatus latirostris actively consume the sponge Chondrilla caribensis.
PeerJ 8: c8443. 12 pp. 1 tab. 4 figs. + online supplemental information. DOI 10.7717/peerj.8443 Jan. 22, 2020.
–ABSTRACT: The Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris Linnaeus 1758) actively selects and consumes the "chicken-liver" sponge Chondrilla caribensis. Manatees ate over 10% of C. caribensis on a sample dock, mostly from pylons that received no direct sunlight. Since manatees reportedly eat mostly seagrasses and algae, it was thought that the chlorophyll-a content of the symbiotic cyanobacteria in C. caribensis might be correlated to the amount eaten; however the correlation was not significant (P >0:05). C. caribensis has variable chemical defenses and round spherasters (spicules), but these do not appear to be effective deterrents to predation by manatees. This is the first direct evidence that manatees actively seek out and consume a sponge.
Daryl P. Domning, Research Associate, Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560, and Laboratory of Evolutionary Biology, Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, Howard University, Washington, D.C. 20059.
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