Why biologists are so excited to find a bunch of puny manta rays
Young manta rays have a sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico.
By Lexi Krupp June 26, 2018
“They’re super friendly, they’re interested in you, they’re curious.â€
G.P. Schmahl/NOAA
Late in the evening, a government-owned catamaran departs from Galveston, Texas nearly every week of the summer. It travels through the night, a hundred miles down the Gulf of Mexico, to reach a series of reefs that rise up from the seafloor. The boat parks beside the coral for several days, abutting the edge of the continental shelf. There, biologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) can plumb the water’s depths to survey its creatures.
The reefs lie within Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, home to boulders of corals, barracudas, whale sharks, and sea turtles. The sanctuary also harbors scores of young giant manta rays—the first nursery habitat proposed in the world, according to research published earlier this month.
https://www.popsci.com/manta-ray-pup-nursery
