We Put a Camera on a Manatee’s Peduncle | National Geographic

I often get asked what the hardest
animal to get a critter came on has been
it wasn’t a great white it wasn’t a blue
whale turns out it’s the manatee this
was a huge surprise not at all the
animal I thought we would have trouble
with big docile lumps they looked like
unfinished play-doh animals and I just
never thought before we got started that
it would be so hard we tried to work
from what we already knew about putting
critter cams and other animals
we tried suction cups which worked great
on whales when the manatees skin is a
little too rough it’s got little hairs
on it and the cups just wouldn’t hold we
eventually tried harnesses the first
design we tried the manatees just took
it off to head back to the drawing board
and we actually circled back around to a
design that researchers have been using
to put satellite tags and radio tags on
manatees for years it involves putting a
belt around the peduncle yes I said
peduncle you can look it up it’s a real
word it’s the narrowest part body so we
can put a belt around that section and
it doesn’t have to be snug down tight
because they can’t slip either way so in
the end we ended up with the Dunkel belt
and something like a fishing rod with
camera
you