![]() ![]() ( Watch Andrea Marshall, "Queen of the Manta Rays," talk about her research). ![]() In her research, National Geographic explorer Andrea Marshall has found that manta rays have patterns on their undersides that are unique to that individual. These tough-looking teeth help rays crush crustaceans, a favorite food. The teeth of the cownose ray (scroll down) "look like the concrete or marble pieces put together form a sidewalk," says Burgess. There's the sixgill stingray, unusual for its long pointy snout, Paig-Tran says, and Burgess is partial to the see-through schnoz of the clearnose skate. If stunned by an electric ray, divers can become unconscious and drown. "Electric rays actually can be lethal to humans," Paig-Tran says. There are 69 species of electric rays, which are able to produce external electric shocks to ward off predators and stun prey via a specialized organ. If you find saws to be a bit old-fashioned, how about rays that tase? (Related: "Sawfish Snout Has Sixth Sense-Splits Prey in Half.") Shocking Behavior "They swing their heads back and forth and knock fishes silly, maybe impaling a few on the way as well," Burgess says. The saws are put to good use as weapons and to find-and fillet-other fish. (See National Geographic's shark pictures.) That's how you make a ray," quipped George Burgess, an ichthyologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, in Gainesville. ![]() Then imagine a steamroller going over the top of it. They're closely related to another group within the elasmobranchs: sharks. Rays, and their smaller egg-laying relatives, skates, are part of a group called elasmobranchs, fish that have skeletons of cartilage rather than bone and five or more gill slits on the side of their heads. Paig-Tran has been stung by a stingray, and calls it "the worst pain I had ever experienced-and that holds up to this day." Steamrolled Shark Though his hand is obscured in the image, "he is actually putting pressure near the base of the spine so that cannot become erect and sting anyone.īut even pros can make mistakes. "You will notice is handling the tail right next to the spine," Misty Paig-Tran, a marine biologist at California State University, Fullerton, says via email. What's more, the spine is located toward the base of the tail, not the tip. The number of spines varies by species, but stingrays in this family typically have one, and it grows along with the fish. chaophraya, belongs to the Dasyatidae family, which is known for its venomous spines. So, for Weird Animal Question of the Week, we dove in to learn more about the ancient, arresting, and dizzyingly diverse group of fish called rays and skates.įirst off, the recently caught giant freshwater stingray, a species called Himantura polylepis or H. ![]()
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