Manatee sign, St Petersburg, Florida, 2014
Hex colour reference: 979AAA
A colourful note: this bluish grey shade appeared as manatee in Crayola boxes in 1998 and is currently available in the 120 packs.
If you run through through the list of Crayola crayon names, both historic and current, you won’t find many animals as it happens. I have no concrete information on why the term manatee was chosen, but this dark shade seems well described by the name of this cute and threatened animal. I suspect that the manatee’s threatened future had become more widely known around the time of naming this crayon: in 1996 over 150 died in Florida, poisoned by a marine algae that they are vulnerable to; and a major research study showed in 1997 that the Florida manatees are so threatened that they will become extinct without serious human intervention. All three species of manatee are listed by the World Conservation Union as vulnerable to extinction and they are classified as endangered by both the state and the federal governments in USA.
Copyright Debbie Smyth, 24 February 2016
Travel with Intent 
Just before visiting your post I looked up “manatee” in the dictionary.
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Yes, it still isn’t that well known a species.
On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 7:00 AM, Travel with Intent wrote:
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Inspirational that you can relate the Crayola colour to the Manatee. Excellent 🙂
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I did have to edit that shot a little to get the grey at the top (shhhh!)
On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 9:24 PM, Travel with Intent wrote:
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Love the colour and I’m sorry for the poor manatees…..
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Great find.
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I hoped someone would have an actual manatee image, Yea you 😀
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I was hoping to find a shot of a real manatee but I think my sighting of those beautiful animals must have preceded digital!
On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 7:20 PM, Travel with Intent wrote:
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Lovely color and sign, sad story. Hopefully there will be a happy ending.
janet
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I do hope so!
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