Dugongs, or sea cows as they are called sometimes, are marine animals. ''Marine'' means they live in the ocean. They are the only mammals in Australia that live mainly on plants. And that's why they are called sea cows sometimes: they don't eat other animals...they love seagrass and eat around 25 (!!) kg of it in an average day.

They can't see very well, but they use their sensitive bristles in finding seagrass. These bristles cover teh upper lip of their large and fleshy snout. Small tusks can be seen in adult males and some old females. During the mating season male dugongs use their tusks to fight each other.

Interestingly, they are more closely related to elephants than to other marine mammals like whales, dolphins or seals. Their closest living aquatic relatives are the manatees. Although the dugong and the manatee are members of the order Sirenia, the dugong comes from a seperate family, Dugongidae. The main difference between them is manatees are fresh water mammals, while dugongs are marine mammals - they only live in the ocean.

The name dugong comes from the Malay word ''duyong''.