Paul Caghlin, age 11, of Lethbridge, Alta., Canada, for his question:

WHAT IS A DUGONG?

You might mistake the dugong for a large seal or a small whale  and, strange to say, certain sailors of olden days mistook him for a mermaid. He is a water dwelling mammal with front flippers, a flat tail and a large mouth. His fat tummy tapers toward the head and tail, and his total length is about 10 feet. The rather lazy fellow may weigh about 650 pounds.

The dugong looks somewhat like a less wrinkled manatee, and like the manatee he enjoys life in shallow, brackish waters.  However, the dugong is an Old World water mammal, at home along the shallow shores of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. There he browses on waterweeds, using his front flippers to stuff food into his big mouth.