Diver Drops Her GoPro at the Bottom of a Spring in Florida — Then, a Manatee Picked It Up

They spend most of their life resting, napping, eating, and gliding around languidly. Approach too close and they’ll nuzzle you with their big, baggy lips, probably even turning around for a belly rub. Manatees, as they are called, are celebrated for their playful and tranquil disposition. As they haul their bulky bodies through the warm shallow waters, rolling, tumbling, and lollygagging, they paint a picture so magical that would make even the most romantic poem appear dull. This is precisely what Skatey (@skateybrown) felt when encountering one of these meditative creatures while diving in Florida. A video that has since garnered over 13 million views shows an adorable manatee attempting to twiddle with a GoPro camera that her friend left unattended for a moment in the spring.

The 10-second footage reveals a charcoal-grey-colored manatee, featuring charcoal grey color, playing around with the selfie stick of Skatey’s camera at the bottom of a spring in Florida. For a while, the manatee drags around the camera on the ocean floor blanketed with white sediment. With its foreflippers, it keeps on fiddling with the equipment as if amusing itself. In one moment, it even tried to snap a selfie with the camera. In the video’s caption, Skatey shared that her fellow diver, Victoria, left the GoPro camera on the ground to fix her goggles. “I looked down and a sneaky potato came and picked up the GoPro,” she wrote.

The cute, elephantine manatee captured the hearts of over 5,000 people who jumped into the comments section to express the beauty of the entire episode. “Bro was really getting cinematic,” commented @richolasgarcia. @fullofrage jokingly said, “He’s vlogging! Let him make his TikToks!” @nicenice_darky quipped, “He was doing a documentary on the human species.” @pecantpie pointed out, “The fact he's holding it with his little flippers!” The video even invited a comment from the French skincare brand La Roche (@LaRochePosayUS).

Many people reflected on the serene yet enigmatic nature of manatees. @alycyn wrote that they are “naturally playful.” As it turns out, these Florida manatees, also known as “sea cows,” are a subspecies of West Indian manatees, per Britannica. Featuring paddle-like rounded tails, side flippers, and no hind limbs, these stoical creatures swim around eating aquatic plants such as water grasses, weeds, and algae. Since they’re herbivorous, they usually eat lofty amounts of food to stock up their bodies with sufficient protein supply. Unlike other marine animals that eat fish, krill, and squids, the manatees just have these plants to secure their nutrient supply. For handling this kind of diet, a manatee's intestine is designed as long as 100 feet and its stomach is equipped with hindgut digesters, like the ones horses have.

Their extraordinary lips are prehensile and studded with specialized sensory bristles and hairs for discriminating, selecting, and manipulating food plants. Oftentimes, these bonny mammals poke their whiskered snouts above the water’s surface to catch a quick breath of air. This footage is just one of the many examples of why manatees are the “sweetest animals in the world,” as @c1nic said in a comment.

You can follow Skatey (@skateybrown) on TikTok for more interesting vlogs of her adventures.