Not a Dugong

The brief

A manatee hovers over a seagrass bed in shallow, silty water, grazing slowly, using its flippers to walk itself forward. Warm light from a low sun, particles drifting in the water column.

Why it's hard

Ask for a manatee and you will very often get a dugong. The difference is the tail: manatees have a single rounded paddle like a spoon, dugongs have a notched fluke like a dolphin. Models blend the two constantly.

Every challenge is scored against the same vocabulary, so you can compare them. Lit cells are what this one tests.

Success criteria

• The tail is a single rounded paddle. If it is notched or forked, you generated a dugong.
• The snout is broad and downturned for bottom grazing, not tapered.
• The animal moves with slow buoyant momentum — manatees never dart.

Starter prompt

Built with the CEMI MediaMax system for Google Veo 3.1. Prompts stay in English — that is the language these models take instructions in. Treat it as a starting point and start varying it.

Shallow spring-fed run, three metres of clear water over a green turtle-grass bed, late morning, sunlight banding the sand floor. A West Indian manatee, Trichechus manatus — a single rounded spoon-shaped paddle tail, not a forked dolphin fluke; a blunt whiskered snout with a split prehensile upper lip working the grass blades; stubby forelimbs with three nails on each flipper; wrinkled slate-grey skin patched with green algae and old pale propeller scars — grazes nose-down, tearing up grass and clouding silt with each mouthful. Camera: a snorkeler holding position, 24mm behind a scratched dome port, slow drift and small depth corrections from breathing, no gimbal steadiness. Dirty foreground: swaying grass blades and drifting silt crossing the lens. Register of DP Christopher Doyle's soft green-blue water light. Ambient plus surface caustics only, no fill.

Style reference: Christopher Doyle (DP), soft green-blue submerged light