maritime life scientist Joshua Stewart was scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico when he spotted a sister manta ray — an unexpected find , hand that juveniles are extremely rare and seldom observed by humans .
After psychoanalyze other divers ’ adolescent sightings , he and his colleagues determined a specific section of the Gulf to be a glasshouse for oceanic manta rays , according to theirstudypublished latterly in Marine Biology .
“ The jejune sprightliness level for oceanic mantas has been a minute of a black boxful for us , since we ’re so rarely able to observe them , ” Stewart , a graduate student at the University of California San Diego , saidin a crush exit . The glasshouse could prove utilitarian for better understanding baby manta beam , he said .
The nursery is locate around 100 miles south of Texas in theFlower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary , a 56 - substantial - knot protected domain in the Gulf of Mexico . It harbors giant manta rays in add-on to coral , jellies , heavyweight , ocean turtles , and other animal specie .
The research worker dug into 25 years of recorded manta data point with the sanctuary employee ’ help . They specifically look at the size and the patterns of place on their undersurface , which vary so on the button that scientist can use these scar to identify individual animals .
The records divulge that 95 percentage of all oceanic mantas in the sanctuary were juveniles . There ’s no obvious reason they select this region as their nursery , according to the paper , but the researchers suspect it may have something to do with H2O temperature and deepness . It ’s something of a mellifluous spot — warm enough to savor in after a forage trip into deeper , chillier water , and far enough from the surface to avoid being spotted by predatory animal like bull shark .
Though the juvenile populate in Flower Garden Banks average a wingspan of about seven and a half feet , fully grown manta ray can get through up to 23 metrical foot across — that ’s longsighted than three Shaquille O’Neals . And though adults can weigh over a ton , they ’re not considered dangerous to humans . These giants exhaust plankton and swim in tropic water around the world . But devilfish of any age have remained difficult to study over the years , because they never seem to stray to the coasts near man .
The stakes for understanding how these animals reproduce and develop are even high when consider they ’re listed asvulnerableon the IUCN ’s Red List of Threatened Species . Though this nursery ’s waters are already protected , others may not be so lucky . Many piscary target oceanic manta rays for food for thought or traditional medicine product , and other times they are catch by accident in with child - scale fishing trading operations .
In the future tense , encounter more nursery and protecting more swaths of the sea could be vital to protecting these manta ray populations .
[ Marine Biology ]
conservationGulf of MexicoMarine biologyScience
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , scientific discipline , and culture news in your inbox daily .
word from the future , deliver to your present .
You May Also Like
