du·gong

D0417700 (do͞o′gŏng′, -gông′)n. A herbivorous marine mammal (Dugong dugon), native to tropical coastal waters of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, and southwest Pacific Ocean and having flipperlike forelimbs and a notched tail.

[New Latin Dugong, genus name, ultimately (partly via French dugon) from dugung, recorded as a local word for the dugong on the Moluccan island of Leti by Ernst Christoph Barchewitz (1687-1758), German travel writer and administrator for the Dutch East Indies Company, perhaps a misreading (with g for y) of *duyung, representing a local pronunciation of standard Malay duyong; akin to Tagalog duyong, dugong, and Malagasy trozona, whale, all from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *duyuŋ, dugong.]

dugong

(ˈduːɡɒŋ) n (Animals) a whalelike sirenian mammal, Dugong dugon, occurring in shallow tropical waters from E Africa to Australia: family Dugongidae[C19: from Malay duyong]

du•gong

(ˈdu gɒŋ, -gɔŋ)

n. a plant-eating aquatic mammal, Dugong dugon, of Indian Ocean shores, having front flippers and a tail fin. [1790–1800; < New Latin < German]

Thesaurus

Noun

dugong - sirenian tusked mammal found from eastern Africa to Australia; the flat tail is bilobateDugong dugonsea cow, sirenian, sirenian mammal - any of two families of large herbivorous aquatic mammals with paddle-shaped tails and flipper-like forelimbs and no hind limbsgenus Dugong - type genus of the Dugongidae comprising only the dugongs

Translations

дюгонь

dugong

enUK

dugong:

see sireniansirenian
or sea cow,
name for a large aquatic mammal of the order Sirenia. Living sirenians are the dugong and the manatee, both found in warm, shallow waters in sheltered regions, where they feed on seaweeds and seagrasses.
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Dugong

(Dugong dugon), an aquatic mammal, the sole representative of the genus Dugong of the order Sirenia. It normally attains a length of 2.5-3 m, with males weighing about 170 kg and females about 140 kg. The small and barely mobile head merges with the spindle-shaped trunk ending with a horizontal bilobate fin. The forelimbs are supple flippers. Of hind limbs only rudimentary pelvic bones, concealed in the muscles, remain. The coarse skin is dark leaden or brown in color and covered with sparse hairs. Both jaws have five or six molars on each side, cylindrical in form and lacking enamel; in addition, the males have two tusklike upper incisors 6-7 cm long.

The Dugong lives in the coastal waters of eastern Africa, southern Asia, the Moluccas, the Philippines, the Malay Archipelago, New Guinea, and Australia, sometimes entering the mouths of rivers. The Dugong lives in groups of three to six animals or in pairs and feeds on aquatic plant life. The female gives birth to a single offspring. It is hunted, but its numbers have greatly decreased.

O. L. ROSSOLIMO

dugong

a whalelike sirenian mammal, Dugong dugon, occurring in shallow tropical waters from E Africa to Australia: family Dugongidae

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Dugong

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Synonyms for dugong

noun sirenian tusked mammal found from eastern Africa to Australia

Synonyms

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