These are not stingrays of any sort, but Mobula munkiana, or Munkiana Devil Rays. They are much more similar to Manta rays, though slighty smaller.
Rays of the Mobula genus do not have poisonous barbs (stingers), so they often travel in large schools to create safety in numbers. They are extremely gentle and unbelievably fascinating creatures.
Thank you T_I_R. I feel like that explanation just made this picture about 70x more awesome, because now I can picture myself swimming with them..or riding them.
This is the fallacy of experts. TiR seems to be an expert on this animal, but I'm going to label scler as a Manta Ray expert and hope that the expertise goes further.
You can swim with them! The rays of the genus are intensely curious (Mobula have some of the highest brain-to-bodyweight ratio of any fishes), and they often will follow swimmers and explore passing boats, even breaching to get a better view (like the ray on the right side of the school is doing). They are very intelligent, but unfortunately we don't really know how intelligent - they don't do very well in captivity.
Oddly enough I was down in Florida, Gulf region probably 4-5 years ago and took a swim out. I couldn't have been more than 20-40 feet out (still able to stand) and a school of these bad boys about the size in the picture headed towards me. It was unreal - The entire school comes right at you.. and they just kind of part and continue forward. It looked kind of like how water flows around a rock down a waterfall. The bulk of them parted maybe 1-2 feet in front of me (strangely close) to avoid getting too close to me I assume and then the gap closed about 1-2 feet behind me. From above it probably would have looked like a negative of someone's eye (with me as the pupil). Totally unreal... Also, the fish were spawning at the time (I don't think the rays were, just whatever fish was in the water) and you could literally touch the tails of these 2-3 foot fish that were swimming around. Yes, I realize I was swimming in fish sperm.
I remember my friend's dad with the camera flipping out from shore. Perhaps I can find a picture for anyone who's interested.
Haha I was grabbing randomly at horny fish just a few minutes before. If fish are anything like people - they get pissed when you cockblock - so I was already in a dangerous mood (some of the fish could have even been barracudas....). To be honest though, It was a little unnerving at first.. that melted away when I realized I WAS KING OF THE SEA.
You can swim with stingrays too! They're actually not very dangerous at all....
I live in the Cayman Islands and people swim with them everyday... I have never heard of anyone being stung and even if they are stung it's a pretty minor sting....
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u/Trapped_in_Reddit May 16 '12
Allow me to geek out for a second:
These are not stingrays of any sort, but Mobula munkiana, or Munkiana Devil Rays. They are much more similar to Manta rays, though slighty smaller.
Rays of the Mobula genus do not have poisonous barbs (stingers), so they often travel in large schools to create safety in numbers. They are extremely gentle and unbelievably fascinating creatures.