Some years ago an unusual catch by fishermen of Ras al Khaimah made headlines in the newspapers. A young dugong or seacow had been caught in the nets and hauled ashore. Since dugongs are air-breathing mammals, the animal drowned when it could not come up for air. I managed to acquire it to preserve it for display in the Natural History Museum at the Sharjah Desert Park. After it was put on display, I observed several times that people, both local and expatriate, would approach the animal with a cry of amazement: "What is this?" Obviously few people knew that such an animal exists in the waters of the UAE.

    Seacows are locally called "arus al bahr" (the bride of the sea), while their scientific name is Dugong dugon. They belong to the family of Sirenae, together with the manatee, a slightly different looking seacow from America. There used to be another seacow in the Pacific; this Steller's seacow was discovered in 1741 by a ship-wrecked Russian expedition in which the naturalist Steller took part. He and his crew were stranded on Bering Island for a winter season and survived by hunting and eating this huge seacow that reached a length of 8 meters and a weight of almost 6000 kg. By 1768, a few decades after its discovery, the giant Steller's seacow had become extinct, fallen prey to hunters.

    The local species of seacow occurs in the Red sea, along the east coast of Africa, around the islands of the Bay of Bengal, along the Malay Archipelago and in the Moluccas as far as the Philippines, New Guinea and to the coast of Australia north of the tropics. It is a tropical warm-water mammal that never ranges far to sea or into fresh water. The American manatee, on the other hand, does occur in the estuaries of fresh water rivers. In its whole range, the dugong is threatened with extinction, as they are hunted for their tasty meat and for the valuable oil that is rendered from their blubber for various "medicinal" uses. In Madagaskar for example, the powder of the upper incisors is used in drugs for people who have eaten contaminated food, the fat is a cure for headaches and the tallow is used as a laxative.

    The population that occurs off the coast of the UAE is one of the largest; with the largest population occurring in Shark Bay in Australia. Recently the seas around the island of Merawah, west of Abu Dhabi, have been declared a Marine reserve to protect these unique animals.

    The dugong is a plant-eating mammal, with an average length of 2.5 to 3.2 meters (up to 4 meters) and from 230 to 900 kg in adult weight. They surface to breathe at irregular intervals while grazing. The records for submergence are one to ten minutes, but on average they take a breath every 3-5 minutes. They live either solitary, in pairs or in small herds of 3-6 individuals. They have a smooth brown to gray skin, with stiff bristles around their muzzle that have a sensory function. Their nostrils are placed on the top of their heads, which allows them to breathe without rising much above the level of the water. The tail flipper has a broad notch in the mid-line and two pointed lateral lobes (manatees have a rounded undivided tail flipper). The forelimbs are like flippers, more long than broad. Their skull is massive, but the brain is very small in relation to the size of the animal. They feed on various marine algae and on sea-grasses, which they forage by uprooting them with their broad snout that ends in a downward facing flexible disk and a slit-like mouth.

Adults eat up to 30 kg of sea grasses per day. They prefer green sea-grasses, rejecting brown seaweeds. The males have incisors that grow into small tusks. In fact, dugongs are related to two species of mammals that look very different: the elephant and the rock hyrax. All three species are animals with similar skeletons; they have two mammary glands between their front limbs (contrary to almost all other mammals). There are also similarities in social behaviour as all three species live in small herds led by a dominant female.

    The breeding season of dugongs apparently lasts throughout the year, as young have been seen in different stages of development in every month. Usually a single young is born at a time, after a gestation period of 11-13 months. The baby is born under water and must immediately rise to the surface to catch its first breath. The mother then carries it on her back near the surface for a long time, until the young has learned to take minute-long breaths. The young is carefully guarded by the mother while it suckles for nearly two years, during which time it stays close to the mother. Although a female dugong may live up to 50 years, she is likely to produce no more than five or six offspring over an average lifetime.

    The dugong is the animal that gave rise to the stories of mermaids. They were first mentioned in Western literature by Pliny and may have served as the basis for Homer's fanciful tale of Odysseus and the Sirens. The early European seafarers brought back tales of seeing mermaids that lived in the sea and nursed their babies at the breast, cradling them in the flippers in human style. Since dugongs nurse their young at twin mammae that are situated between their front flippers, these stories most likely refer to these peaceful browsers of the sea. In actual fact the calves suckle lying besides its mother, behind her flipper and often belly up.

    Dugongs are not easily studied. The waters where they live are usually turbid, so they cannot be seen easily, and their combine shyness and curiosity in a way that frustrates close observation. They will approach boats to investigate them visually, coming to within 100 meters. When they are disturbed they flee quickly, aided by their extra-ordinary sensitive hearing. They are not known for their intelligence, probably an indication that they have few natural enemies. They are specialised for life in shallow waters, and their ability to stay submerged is limited, as are their speed and endurance wen pursued. Wherever men hunt them, they are no match for rifles, outboard motors and large-mesh nylon nets.

   It seems that although dugongs live in small herds of 3-6 individuals, they periodically come together in large groups. This may be caused by seasonal and localized sources of food or other reasons that are yet to be discovered. In the Arabian Gulf, congregations of up to 700 individuals have been observed.

    Although there is no indication that Sirenians mate for longer periods of time, they do have a sense of "family" as this account by Steller in 1751 shows:

    "If one of them was harpooned all the others tried to save him. Some formed a ring round their wounded comrade and endeavoured in this manner to keep him from the shore. We also observed with astonishment that a male came on two successive days to his dead mate lying on the beach as though to enquire after her wellbeing."

    This behaviour is reminiscent of the way elephants behave when herd-mates are killed and may be another indication of the kinship between the largest land mammal and the largest sea mammal.