The dugong is severely uninteresting. Its name is uninteresting; its appearance is uninteresting; and, by God, everything else about it is just as uninteresting - if not more so.
For a start, the name 'dugong' has a rather uninteresting ring to it.
A dugong expert commented:
"I don't know. I'm torn between liking it and not liking it. Some mornings, I wake up and think 'Yes, it's a terrible name for an animal!', but other days, I think 'Well, it's not too bad, and it's only a generic name!', and that's the end of it. I'm almost certain dugongs, themselves, are unaware of the name we, as humans, have given them, and they don't seem to care even if they are aware of it."
The dugong's ugly appearance is totally lacking in interestingness. A great, big, lumpy thing with a dunce-like village idiot face at one end, and a fin at the other.
Not only is the dugong an uninteresting animal, though, researchers have found that it also comes across as a specimen which is also uninterested in anything else. One of them, Steve Morron, from the Antipidean Research of Sea Entities (ARSE), said:
"I showed them pictures of a Lamborghini, a BMW, a Mercedes, and a Jaguar, as well as some crazy hot rods. There was a Harley Davidson as well. Nothing. I tried some photos of sexy, bikini-clad women, but they just weren't interested. I couldn't understand their lack of interestedness."
Morron also explained how he handed out several bottles of Scottish whisky and some Cuban cigars, but was met with the same blank stares and level of uninterestedness.
It appears that dugongs have ONE objective in mind: eating. They 'amble' around the depths of the oceans, minding their own business, consuming large amounts of sea plants. Some studies have shown that they continue eating just as long as food is put in front of them, even whilst sleeping.
A dugong in northern Australia was found to be eating even after it had died.
A question that animal-lovers always want to ask the experts is:
"Do dugongs kill and eat people?"
A short answer to this is "Yes", but an even shorter answer is "No", and the latter is also the true answer.
Dugongs can live for a very long time, and one that was captured in a peat bog in New Zealand was estimated to be around 3,500 years old.
Well, I'm sure that, by now, you will be every bit as uninterested in dugongs as the creatures are of themselves, so, until next week, when I hope to bring you a feature on another uninteresting specimen, I'll bid you a fond farewell.
See you next Tuesday.
