“They can be very curious and we think they are likely very smart.
“People will go halfway across the world just to dive with manta rays,” Pate said. More: Special $6,000 sensors will keep daily diaries of blacktip sharks off Palm Beach coastĪs adults, they can grow to 23 feet with gaping pectoral wings, cutting silently through tropical waters like wraiths. “Typically, nurseries are chosen because there is a lot of food or a lack of predators so they can grow safely.”Īt birth, giant oceanic manta rays are as big as 6-feet across - coming into the world folded up like a “manta ray burrito”, Pate said. “We don’t know exactly why they are choosing this area as a nursery,” said Pate, who earned a master’s degree in biology from Florida Atlantic University. She said it wasn’t a shock to find the inquisitive ocean titans along Palm Beach County’s coast, but it was a surprise to find only young ones. Jessica Pate, whose study on the manta ray nursery was published this month in the journal Endangered Species Research, is also founder and lead scientist for the Florida Manta Project. They do not have barbed tails like stingrays. The gentle ocean megafauna feed on tiny zooplankton, funneling water into their mouth with two horn-like fins on either side of their head, and are no threat to humans.
More: VIDEO: Hammerheads slink close to Palm Beach County shore, and there’s a reason for that Three years of continuing research of coastal waters largely from the Jupiter Inlet to the Boynton Inlet found an unusual number of juvenile manta rays gliding through shallow waters sometimes just feet from swimmers. A nursery for giant oceanic manta rays - a furtive relative of the more flamboyant shark - has been discovered in the saltwater border of Palm Beach County in a study scientists say is a first step to protecting what could be critical habitat for the threatened species.
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