{"id":117080,"date":"2016-03-30T12:18:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T10:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/117080\/wacky-wednesday-weird-wonderful-wacky-nature\/"},"modified":"2016-03-30T12:18:13","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T10:18:13","slug":"wacky-wednesday-weird-wonderful-wacky-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/lifestyle-news\/entertainment-news\/2016\/03\/30\/wacky-wednesday-weird-wonderful-wacky-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Wacky Wednesday: Weird, wonderful, wacky nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All three species of manatee &#8211; the Amazonian manatee, West Indian manatee, and West African manatee &#8211; and the related dugong are facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. \u00a0This is due to a variety of threats including boat collisions, hunting, habitat destruction, and toxic red tides.\u00a0Manatees have no natural predators in the wild but humans have played a large part in making all three species at risk of extinction.<\/p>\n<p>Manatees are typically found in shallow coastal areas and rivers where they feed on sea grass, mangrove leaves, and algae.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>Manatees go to the surface of the water every three to five minutes to breathe although they can remain underwater longer, holding their breath for up to 20 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The closest living relatives to manatees are elephants. Manatees evolved from the same land animals as elephants over 50 million years ago.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>Mermaids<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/albertonrecord.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/35\/2016\/03\/mermaid.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-101428\" src=\"https:\/\/albertonrecord.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/35\/2016\/03\/mermaid.jpg\" alt=\"mermaid\" width=\"517\" height=\"387\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Christopher Columbus and other early explorers claimed to have seen female figures swimming in the ocean &#8211; the mermaids in the writings and drawings of this era. Whether they had been at sea for too long or it was a trick of the light, we now know that many of these encounters were manatees.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> Smithsonian<\/p>\n<div class='tie-fluid-width-video-wrapper tie-ignore-fitvid' style='margin-bottom: 30px;'>\n\t\t\t<iframe style='width: 100%; min-height: 300px; aspect-ratio: 16\/9;' src='https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/r2wDZ75_66c' loading='lazy'><\/iframe>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-below-post-content\">\n<div class='tenancy_slot tenancy_slot_1 jannah_ad' style='display: none;' data-query-id='eb0a73bce578567a215b9254ae315500'><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is Manatee Appreciation Day. Manatees are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7782,"featured_media":117081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Caxton Central","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3686],"tags":[10389,10390,10391,10392],"class_list":["post-117080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment-news","category-lifestyle-news","tag-at-risk-of-extinction","tag-manatee","tag-mermaids","tag-related-to-elephants"],"amp_enabled":true,"category_labels":{"Category":"Lifestyle","SubCategory":"Entertainment"},"tag_labels":["at risk of extinction","manatee","mermaids","related to elephants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}