Speaking of which, dugongs are also a very pitiful marine creature. They need to spend a lot of time eating every day because they consume a lot of food, but their movement speed is very slow, and they lack effective means of attack and defense, so they have many natural enemies.
Basically, any marine predator in the ocean that is larger than the dugong is the dugong's natural enemy.
Because the fat content in dugongs is very high, their entire body is a treasure to humans.
The most valuable thing on a dugong is its oil. The eternal lamp made from dugong fat is loved by countless dignitaries in ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad. It is said that the legendary mermaid oil lamp is made from dugong oil.
In addition, dugong skin is also the best material for making leather. In romantic Paris, there was a time when a belt made of dugong skin was sold at a sky-high price of 70,000 francs.
In addition, the dugong has a large skeleton, and its bones can be made into valuable sculpture ornaments.
So there was a time when fishermen all over the world were frantically hunting dugongs. The docile dugongs became victims of human commercial interests. After the frantic hunting by humans, there are not many dugongs left in the world, and they are on the verge of extinction.
The group of dugongs Xiang Yang saw in front of him consisted of five in total, two big ones, one and a half grown ones, and two small ones. It was obvious that they were a family of five.
In fact, this family of five is considered a very large group among dugongs.
Dugongs like to live together in family units. A normal dugong group usually consists of two to three dugongs, usually two large ones with one small one. Young dugongs will leave their parents and live alone after they reach adulthood, and adult dugongs generally will not continue to reproduce if they have underage offspring.
The gestation period of a dugong is generally 11 to 14 months, and a newborn dugong needs 7-8 years to reach adulthood. Xiang Yang guessed that the half-grown one of the three baby dugongs in front of him should be about five years old, and the other two baby dugongs are under two years old, because an adult dugong usually needs about three years after giving birth to a baby dugong before it will become pregnant again.
It is really not easy for a dugong with such a low reproductive capacity to form a family of five, because young dugongs often become food for other large carnivorous marine creatures, and normally only one out of ten young dugongs can grow up to adulthood.
The slow reproduction rate of dugongs and the harsh living environment have caused the number of dugongs to decrease continuously in recent years. Until now, few fishermen can hear the "mermaids" singing on the seaside reefs in summer.
Xiang Yang didn't want to scare this group of docile dugongs, so he slowly retreated towards the muddy ground behind.
A little dugong saw Xiang Yang retreating and seemed to become curious about him. It used its clumsy limbs to try to swim towards him.
The little dugong's behavior immediately frightened the big dugong. The female dugong hurriedly pulled the little dugong back, while the male dugong kept staring at Xiang Yang with a fierce look.
Xiang Yang smiled. It was really true that a newborn calf is not afraid of a tiger. According to the temperament of the adult dugong, it must be protecting the two little dugongs when it saw him and did not flee. The little dugongs were actually swimming towards him fiercely. Fortunately, Xiang Yang was not a ferocious marine predator, otherwise the little dugong would have been killed.
Retreating back to the mud-covered sea area, Xiang Yang no longer looked for the clam shells, but swam directly towards the surface of the sea. He had been separated from the crew for a while, and if he did not return to the surface of the sea to meet them, it might cause unnecessary panic.
"Captain, you finally came up. I was looking for you everywhere underwater just now. Where have you been?" Chen Qingsheng shouted loudly when he saw Xiang Yang's head show up.
Xiang Yang climbed onto the deck and took off his helmet. "I just saw a few dugongs on the seabed, so I chased them over and took a look."
"Dugong is a big creature. Xiaoyang, are you hurt?" He Mingde asked with concern.
"It's okay. Dugongs look big, but they are actually very timid. They ran away as soon as they saw me. I didn't even get close to them." Xiang Yang said with a smile.
"That's right. A creature like the dugong will immediately flee if it is even slightly frightened. I have never heard of an incident of a dugong attacking a human." He Mingde nodded.
Fang Youqun came over and said with great regret: "Brother Yang, uncle, what on earth is this dugong you are talking about? How come I have never heard of it?"
"You may not have heard of dugong, but you must have heard of its other name." Chen Qingsheng said slyly.
"That's not necessarily true. I've read far fewer books than you might imagine."
Fang Youqun actually also attended a junior high school, but he himself didn't know how he got through that junior high school. Excluding biology and geography, his scores in the final exams of the last semester of his third year in junior high school for all seven subjects combined were less than 100.
"It's a mermaid." Xiang Yang said with a smile, "You can't have never heard of this, right?"
Fang Youqun opened his mouth into an O shape. "Mermaid?"
"That's right." Chen Qingsheng said with a smile.
Xiang Yang smiled and nodded.
He Mingde also looked at him with a smile.
"The kind of mermaid whose upper body is human and whose lower body is fish?" Fang Youqun asked.
"What do you think?" Chen Qingsheng asked back.
Fang Youqun ignored Chen Qingsheng and chased Xiang Yang and asked, "Brother Yang, is the mermaid you saw a male or a female?"
At this time, Song Chaoshu came over and said, "The mermaid your boss saw is not the same as the mermaid you think it is. The dugong is a close relative of the manatee, a vegetarian mammal. Except for the tail, the rest of its appearance is almost exactly the same as the manatee."
"So it's a manatee." Fang Youqun showed a hint of disappointment on his face.
"Boss Song." Xiang Yang greeted him quickly, "Have you also heard of the marine creature called dugong?"
"Not only have I heard of them, I've also seen them." Song Chaoshu said with a smile, "I don't know if the group that Mr. Xiang and I saw is the same group. If it is the group that I saw, they often appear near the coast of this sea area at night. There are five of them in total. It turns out that they come here to look for food during the day."
Xiang Yang raised his eyebrows, "What I saw were five, two big ones and three small ones. Boss Song, do you see them often?"
"Yes, I prefer a location near the sea. The sea view villas in the city are generally open-plan. Many people go there for a walk every day, making it too noisy. So I bought a piece of land in the countryside and built a house. Unexpectedly, I found myself next to the 'Mermaid'." Song Chaoshu nodded.