Manta is a peaceful solitary fish despite the epithet “sea devil”
Numerous experts, divers and ichthyologists have had close encounters with giant or Atlantic fish (manta rays). This huge fish is one of the least studied and tested inhabitants of the ocean. Manta (Latin Mantis birostris) is difficult to see in an aquarium because this heavy fish is difficult to get used to captivity. In some aquariums around the world to this day, there have been newcomers to this fish (for example, the Japanese aquarium Churaumi on the island of Okinawa in 2007 when the giant manta ray cub was born). Mama manta was pulled out of the net by Japanese fishermen back in 1998 and brought to the aquarium – an unusual event that attracted a large number of the general public at the time. Mama manta gave birth to a healthy cub after 374 days, which immediately spread its wings and began to swim.
https://churaumi.okinawa/en/haisai/
It is a real rarity to meet a giant rye in a natural environment. It can only happen if these flying fish need a big save. This shy and solitary fish allows other fish to clean their skin after the skin is contaminated with parasites and dead cells. Divers even then can touch the mantle only at the time of this hygienic beauty treatment. However, cuddling with this fish is not particularly pleasant for either the fish or the diver. The rough skin of this fish is rough but sensitive to touch. Rare encounters with humans are most often reduced to observing humans and fish at a distance. Any of the several species of warm-water sea urchins from the Mobulidae family has a cartilaginous skeleton that makes these fish light and helps them move through the water. Moving this fish through the water looks more like an elegant flight than swimming because of the huge, moving but slender triangular fins. Manet are more broad fish than longer ones with a thin almost two-dimensional body. The range of the fins can be more than 7 meters. They live in warm tropical seas between the 35 northern and 35 southern subdivisions. The fossil remains found confirm that the former manta rays or ancestors of today’s manta rays inhabited the oceans 60 million years ago. Then the manta rays lived on the bottom under the sand, as they do today. Through long evolution and anatomical mutations, manta rays have adapted to life and nutrition at the water’s surface. The weight of these fish can be one and a half tons. They have teeth only in the lower jaw. They feed on plankton, small fish, shellfish and aquatic mollusks. Manta deftly drive and insert water and fish into large mouths with the extension of the moving pectoral fins. This fish needs several hundred kilograms of food a day. That is why they choose water rich in plankton for their life due to the flow and purity of the water.
The lifespan of these fish is about 25 years. They reach sexual maturity between 5 and 7 years of age. Manta rays can be seen in pairs or small flocks only during the mating season because they are otherwise very shy and lonely animals. The cubs lie down in the womb of their parents. Due to its size, the embryo can have a fin span of over a meter and a weight of about 6 kg. Usually only one cub is born after 12 to 13 months.
Manta rays are not warlike animals despite their size and strength. Their enemies are man (fishermen with fishing nets) and the tiger shark. There are only a few locations on earth where these fish can be seen. Between December and May can be seen in Hawaii, around the island of Bora Bora can be seen during the summer, near the Mexican island of St. Benedict from November to May, off the coast of Sudan from September to November, or the coast of Mozambique from December to April, in the Maldives from December to April, in Thailand from February to May, Micronesia from January to May and off the coast of Australia Ningalo reaf from March to May.
magicandbeauty 