This weekend the Seattle Seahawks will take on the New England Patriots at Super Bowl XLIX. 

While everyone is guessing who will win, two Manatees in Sarasota have already decided.  

And, it’s a split vote.

Hugh and Buffett,  manatees at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, made their predictions Thursday, by swimming toward special targets marked with the teams’ logos.

As visitors at the aquarium watched, Buffett selected the Patriots and Hugh selected the Seahawks.

“We have a house divided,” said Kat Boerner, Supervisor of Manatee Research at Mote. “So far Buffett has the better record of predictions, but Hugh is catching up. It will be exciting to see what happens.  The choice is completely up to them. Choosing one team over the other won't win them any more apples, kale or other treats than they'd be getting anyway."

This marks the manatees’ eighth year of Super Bowl predictions.

Buffett picked correctly for six years and then his winning streak ended with an incorrect guess in 2014.

Hugh has five correct guesses and two incorrect.

Hugh and Buffett are trained manatees.

Their caretakers said training helps their veterinary care run more smoothly and allows the two manatees to participate in innovative research about their senses, such as hearing and touch, and about their physiology.

For more than 15 years, researchers at Mote have studied how manatees perceive and navigate their underwater world, where boat strikes and other threats are common.

Mote’s research is designed to help resource managers protect these endangered mammals.

Mote cares for Hugh and Buffett and allows them to participate voluntarily in research under required permits from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

So far, key research findings show that manatees:

  • Have poor vision and probably cannot see fine details.
  • Have good hearing over a wide range of frequencies, including the ability to hear pitches produced by boat engines despite loud background noise, and have a strong ability to locate which direction sounds are coming from.
  • Are some of the most touch-sensitive animals on Earth thanks to their sensitive hairs called vibrissae. Their facial whiskers can sense tiny texture differences, and their body hairs — more than 3,000 total — help the manatees feel water movements thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair. Mote scientists suspect that touch may be the most important sense for manatee survival.