A manatee was one of the latest in a long line of rare marine animals to turn heads along the Texas coast last month, and — in this case — hold up a $64 million state construction project.
One of the world’s roughly 13,000 West Indian manatees swam for a few hours in late August by Port Aransas, where Texas Department of Transportation crews were upgrading a ferry system outside Corpus Christi. The manatees are found along the coastlines of Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Central America and further south to Brazil, but they’re “exceedingly rare” near Texas, likely seen during their summer migration, according to Texas Tech University’s Natural Resources Lab.
The manatee hasn’t been the only rare animal sighting to grace the Texas coast in recent years. The warm Gulf waters hold a host of seatrout, snappers, bass, barracuda, rays, sharks, some whales and other kinds of underwater creatures that sometimes show face near the Lone Star State.
Take a quick dive into the sea life you may not realize exists so close to home.
Portuguese man-of-war
A bluish, purplish, blob-like creature that washes onto the Texas beaches in the spring and summer are known as the Portuguese man-of-war. The militaristic name is a nod to the 18th century Portuguese warships, which, at full sail, resembled the shape of the marine animal…