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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, so we have

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Speaker 1: a vault episode for you. This is going to be

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Speaker 1: the Manta Ray Part one. This one originally published July one,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. This is going to be part one

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Speaker 1: of three. This one is a tremendous amount of fun

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Speaker 1: to research and record, so we hope that you enjoy it,

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Speaker 1: either for the first time or for the second time.

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Speaker 1: Here let's dive right in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. In

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Speaker 1: this episode, we're going to begin our look at the

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Speaker 1: Manta ray because I very recently we had the privilege

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Speaker 1: to travel with my family to raja Ampat in Indonesia

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Speaker 1: for a week of snorkeling, and during that snorkeling, I

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Speaker 1: got to observe manta rays while in the water snorkeling,

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Speaker 1: and it was just a mind blowing experience. It was

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Speaker 1: just magical. I can't quite put it into words exactly,

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Speaker 1: but it was one of these situations where as I

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Speaker 1: was snorkeling out with the other snorkelers towards this manta

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Speaker 1: ray cleaning station. I found myself like mouthing, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: oh my God through my breathing apparatus.

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Speaker 3: The cleaning station is that, do I understand?

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Speaker 1: Right?

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Speaker 3: That's a place where they come to sort of be

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Speaker 3: be swarmed by fish that will help get parasites or

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Speaker 3: other kind of contaminants off of their bodies.

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Speaker 1: Correct, This is This is pretty remarkable in its own right,

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Speaker 1: and I think we'll get into that more in the

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Speaker 1: second episode of this series. But yes, that's what we

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Speaker 1: were observing. These were some reef manta rays that had

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Speaker 1: come out to the cleaning station so that these various

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Speaker 1: fish could eat their parasites. And yeah, it was just

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Speaker 1: magical to watch these creatures move through the water like

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Speaker 1: some sort of animate black and white cape, you know,

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Speaker 1: some sort of an angel or demon, just something almost

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Speaker 1: beyond our ability to comprehend.

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Speaker 3: It's a bach coming in on the organ as they

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Speaker 3: swish around.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they're very very dramatic, but also we'll be

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Speaker 1: discussing relatively drama free at least as far as what

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Speaker 1: they're doing and what they're bringing to the table. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of manta ray drama, but it's almost entirely

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Speaker 1: on us, the humans. Yeah, so I want to mention

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Speaker 1: up here at the top that we did this snorkeling

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Speaker 1: at the Missoul Marine Reserve is also where you find

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Speaker 1: the Missoul Resort. The resort is just one leg of

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Speaker 1: the overall conservation mission here, which actually started before the

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Speaker 1: tourism part of the operation, like the tourism part apparently

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Speaker 1: was then built up afterwards to fund the conservation mission.

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Speaker 1: And I can't say enough good things about this place.

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Speaker 1: Founded on the site of a former shark finning camp

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Speaker 1: and in an area that had been previously targeted by

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Speaker 1: illegal lumber operations and dynamite fishing, and now through the

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Speaker 1: Missoul Foundation, they manage about three hundred thousand acres or

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Speaker 1: twelve two hundred square kilometers of marine reserve with two

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Speaker 1: distinct no take zones. They engage in various conservation efforts

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Speaker 1: such as the Missoul Manta Program, a Reshark program, and

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Speaker 1: this includes a program to reintroduce Indo Pacific leopard sharks,

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Speaker 1: and they partner with various organizations of various like aquariums

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Speaker 1: around the world who have the right eggs egg secs

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Speaker 1: to reintroduce, and their partners include Atlanta Zone Georgia Aquarium.

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Speaker 1: They're also involved in coral refrustoration, sustainability efforts in various

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Speaker 1: community outreach and education programs.

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Speaker 3: So you said you were doing a lot of snorkeling here.

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Speaker 3: I know y'all are a snorkeling family, right, I have

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Speaker 3: no experience with this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, my wife got us into it, and you know,

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Speaker 1: we'll go on snorkeling excursions here and there, and I

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Speaker 1: have to say, yeah, this is the best snorkeling of

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Speaker 1: my life thus far. This part of the world is

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Speaker 1: in what's known as the Coral Triangle. This is an

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Speaker 1: incredibly rich and diverse marine environment that happens to include

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Speaker 1: according to the NAA, quote over six hundred reef building

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Speaker 1: coral species, seventy five percent of all species known to science,

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Speaker 1: three thousand species of reef fish, forty percent of the

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Speaker 1: world's coral reef species, and six of the world's seven

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Speaker 1: marine turtle species. Also three quarters of known molluscs.

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Speaker 3: So it's happening.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's yeah, just a very very rich place. And

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Speaker 1: you know, I'll no doubt come back to other things.

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Speaker 1: I observed there in future episodes, but one of the

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Speaker 1: many highlights again was getting to observe these reef manta

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Speaker 1: rays in the wild. So we'll get back to the

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Speaker 1: details of the different the two main different mantes species,

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Speaker 1: but this is the second largest of the rays and

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Speaker 1: one of only two, possibly three extant manta rays species.

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Speaker 1: They can weigh up to fifteen hundred pounds or seven

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Speaker 1: hundred kilograms, and that's with a maximum disc width of

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Speaker 1: fifteen feet or four hundred and fifty centimeters if you

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Speaker 1: were I guess you could sort of frame that as

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Speaker 1: their wingspan if you want.

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Speaker 3: But you said, so, these are the reef mantas, and

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Speaker 3: the largest of the manta rays would be the giant

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Speaker 3: oceanic mantas, correct.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll come back to the stats on them

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Speaker 1: in a minute. But yeah, in both cases, great bat

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Speaker 1: like black and white creatures that seem to glide and

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Speaker 1: soar through the depths. And I think I had observed

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Speaker 1: some in the water while standing on a sandbar elsewhere

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Speaker 1: in the world previously, but this was my first and

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Speaker 1: only time getting to see them while in the water,

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Speaker 1: and again it was just astounding.

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Speaker 3: So I have no experience with snorkeling. But in reading

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Speaker 3: up for this episode, I just kept coming across first

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Speaker 3: hand descriptions again and again of how strange and amazing

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Speaker 3: it was to be in the water with manta rays.

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Speaker 3: A common thing these divers and researchers talk about is

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Speaker 3: a feeling of kind of intelligent or almost emotional connection

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Speaker 3: with the animal that they have not experienced with any

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Speaker 3: other fish. Because, to be clear, the manta is not

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Speaker 3: like a mammal like dolphins or whales might be that

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Speaker 3: you might be more you know, disposed, you might have

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Speaker 3: more experience hearing about these kind of connections people have

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Speaker 3: with marine mammals. But these are fish, you know, we

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Speaker 3: think of them as these very kind of cold creatures

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Speaker 3: of limited intelligence, kind of like sharks that seem to

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Speaker 3: be mainly just kind of machines acting on impulse. They

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Speaker 3: don't have that feeling of emotion and intelligence you might

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Speaker 3: get from a mammal. But in this case, this is

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Speaker 3: a fish that lots of people say, does it does

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Speaker 3: have that feeling. It's like it's there and it's alive,

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Speaker 3: and it's thinking.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a great point, And I think we'll

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Speaker 1: probably get into the intel the brain, the intelligence of

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Speaker 1: the manta ray, especially in the next episode. But but

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Speaker 1: you do see this observation a lot. There seems to

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Speaker 1: be a curiosity on the part of the manta and

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Speaker 1: in many ways, this kind of curiosity reminds us of

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Speaker 1: our interactions with mammalian marine species like dolphins and whales. Now,

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Speaker 1: in the case of our own experiences, I want to

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Speaker 1: stress that we observe them while snorkeling, rather than say

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Speaker 1: that we swam with them. I guess you could technically

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Speaker 1: say we swam them with them. We were in the

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Speaker 1: same but the body of water with them, but we

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Speaker 1: did keep our distance. We did not chase the manta rays,

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Speaker 1: and we certainly did not attempt attempt to touch these

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Speaker 1: gentle giants of the sea.

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Speaker 3: I assume that's discouraged.

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Speaker 1: It is discouraged, yes, And in discussing this, like the

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Speaker 1: human desire to touch the manta ray, I wanted to

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Speaker 1: get into a preliminary discussion here about the human attitude

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Speaker 1: toward the manta ray because this is important because ultimately

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Speaker 1: human attitudes towards the manta rays also plays into their

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Speaker 1: endangered status in the world, certainly with the oceanic manta.

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Speaker 1: So manta rays enjoy a pretty wide range. They're found

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Speaker 1: in warm, temperate, subtropical and tropical waters around the world.

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Speaker 1: As such, humans and coastal areas within their range have

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Speaker 1: known about them for a very long time. Hawaiian, Micronesian,

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Speaker 1: Southeast Asian, and South American traditions have viewed the manta

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Speaker 1: in varying supernatural lights, as reincarnations of human souls, as

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Speaker 1: avatars of a creator deity, as divine protectors, as divine messengers,

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Speaker 1: and as such, they've even enjoyed traditional protected status amongst

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Speaker 1: certain groups, at least at different times. But there's also

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Speaker 1: a darker side to human attitudes toward manta rays. Over

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Speaker 1: the past couple of decades, the demand for manta ray

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Speaker 1: gill plates in traditional medicine, particularly traditional Chinese medicine, has

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Speaker 1: proven devastating from manta ray populations. Based on the unproven

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Speaker 1: and to be clear of pseudoscientific idea, the consumption of

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Speaker 1: these gills in some sort of like powdered driver and

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Speaker 1: or powdered form can boost the human immune system, among

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Speaker 1: other supposed benefits. And the story of how this is

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Speaker 1: really interesting in its own right. I was reading about

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Speaker 1: this in a paper by O'Malley at all titled Characterization

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Speaker 1: of the Trade in Manta and Devil ray gill plates

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Speaker 1: in China and Southeast Asia through Trader Surveys. This was

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Speaker 1: published in twenty sixteen in Aquatic Conservation, Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems,

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Speaker 1: and they point out that mention of manta gill plates

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Speaker 1: didn't pop up in traditional Chinese medicine publications until around

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. This to be clear, despite the fact

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Speaker 1: that traditional Chinese medicine itself is very very old, going

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Speaker 1: back like five thousand years, widespread and popular form of

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Speaker 1: alternative medicine, but the consumption of these gill plates is

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Speaker 1: not some sort of deep seated tradition in this alternative

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Speaker 1: medicine practice.

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Speaker 3: This would not be the only case that something is

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Speaker 3: presented as a traditional or ancient cure from some culture

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Speaker 3: or other when it is not. It is a fairly

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Speaker 3: recent thing people have started doing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. One of my key sources for these episodes is

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Speaker 1: twenty eighteen's Guide to the Manta and Devil Rays of

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Speaker 1: the World by Stevens, Fernando Dando, and Dyscaria. And in

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Speaker 1: this book, which I'll keep coming back to, they say

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Speaker 1: that this was all likely a quote clever marketing of

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Speaker 1: a readily available and cheap bycatch product. So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: various unsustainable fishing practices would be pulling mantas in any way,

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Speaker 1: and then they're like, well, let's market the parts of

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Speaker 1: this creature and sell it. And then as popularity builds,

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Speaker 1: it translates into direct targeting of mantas by what they

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Speaker 1: describe as boom and bust fisheries. So, for reasons we'll

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Speaker 1: discuss in these episodes, these are vulnerable species that do

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Speaker 1: not easily endure this sort of targeted fishing, so these

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Speaker 1: operations inherently produce very short lived paydays while doing long

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Speaker 1: term damage to the populations. They also note that the

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Speaker 1: rise in popularity may also tie in with the rise

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Speaker 1: in human respiratory illnesses do in part to pollution, and

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Speaker 1: again these pseudoscientific claims. Basically we're dealing with the idea that, Okay,

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Speaker 1: these are filters for the fish, and therefore, on some level,

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Speaker 1: if I consume them, it's going to help filter me

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Speaker 1: out as well. It's going to protect me from the

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Speaker 1: things that would harm me in the environment. So again,

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Speaker 1: gill plates would seem to be a relatively recent addition

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Speaker 1: to traditional Chinese medicine, and one that has had a

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Speaker 1: marked impact on the populations of these vulnerable fish species.

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Speaker 1: The reef manta is currently flagged as vulnerable, while the

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Speaker 1: giant oceanic manta is endangered.

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Speaker 3: And I would imagine that we can come back to

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Speaker 3: this because I'm sure there's more nuance, but I would

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Speaker 3: imagine that they are especially vulnerable to heavy fishing and

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Speaker 3: harvesting because they're larger species that have a slower reproductive

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Speaker 3: schedule exactly.

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Speaker 1: And then historically, on top of all of this, there

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Speaker 1: are Western European misconceptions and myths about manta rays and

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Speaker 1: devil rays, rooted apparently in the observations of sailors, but

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Speaker 1: managing to survive well into the early twentieth century and

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Speaker 1: manifesting in written fiction as well as in at least

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Speaker 1: a couple of early horror films.

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Speaker 3: Yes, so, Rob, at your suggestion, I looked these up.

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Speaker 3: You sort of gave me an assignment here, and I

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Speaker 3: checked these movies out. Strangely, both of these made in

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Speaker 3: the nineteen thirties, you know, I think of the the

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Speaker 3: seventies through the nineties is kind of the heyday of oh,

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Speaker 3: I don't know, killer monster in the ocean movies of course,

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Speaker 3: following Jaws, Jaws is the big one, and then you

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Speaker 3: get all the Jaws copycats, you know, Orca and everything

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Speaker 3: like that, and then even further down the chain until

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Speaker 3: like the real kind of Z grade copycats. You know,

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Speaker 3: in the nineties and two thousands, there were just ten

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Speaker 3: billion direct to video shark movies made.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a great observation, especially since what is it,

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Speaker 1: fifty years of Jaws now celebrating a major birthday.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, you can't deny the power of Jaws.

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Speaker 3: Like as much as I hate to contribute to the

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Speaker 3: demonizing of of ocean creatures, Jaws is just a banger.

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Speaker 3: It's a great movie. It is.

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Speaker 1: It's a great film. It changed movies forever. You can't

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Speaker 1: talk about blockbusters without talking about Jaws. You can't talk

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Speaker 1: about monster movies really without talking talking about Jaws. But

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Speaker 1: it is interesting in pointing out that films like Jaws

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Speaker 1: arise in the nineteen seventies and then various other creatures

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Speaker 1: are drawn into the mix. But the seventies seem to

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Speaker 1: be the time period during which in the Europeans in

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Speaker 1: the West woke up to the idea that, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: manterrays are fine. They're like absolutely not threatening anybody. Not

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Speaker 1: only are they not threatening, not actually threatening, it's hard

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Speaker 1: to conceive of them being threatening. Like, we can't even

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Speaker 1: think about making a monster movie about something so tame.

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Speaker 1: We'll make one about the killer rabbits first.

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Speaker 3: I feel like the stuff you would get later, like

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Speaker 3: in the eighties is movies that had friendly aliens that

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Speaker 3: were basically manter ray shaped. I can't even remember what

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Speaker 3: movie I'm thinking of, but I can picture it in

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Speaker 3: my mind, like a gentle, sort of illuminated, bioluminescent, floating

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Speaker 3: manta ray with intelligence that's like communicating with a child

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Speaker 3: or something. Does that ring any bells for you?

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Speaker 1: Who that one? Not specifically, but I was reading doing

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Speaker 1: some additional reading, and there are various examples of creatures

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Speaker 1: in sci fi that say, live in the atmosphere of

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Speaker 1: Jupiter at least partially based on the manta ray. Oh, like,

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Speaker 1: it just has a pleasing ethereal form. Again, it's like

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Speaker 1: to the point where it's almost hard for us to

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Speaker 1: put ourselves in the mindset of someone who sees a

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Speaker 1: manta ray and thinks about it as a relentless killer.

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Speaker 3: Oh, the Jupiter when you mentioned rang a Bell, because

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Speaker 3: we just talked about the story in our series on

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Speaker 3: the Great Storm the big Red Spot of Jupiter, because

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Speaker 3: that was in a meeting with Medusa by Arthur C. Clark.

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Speaker 3: One of the aliens they meet. There is like a

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Speaker 3: giant manta ray in the atmosphere of Jupiter. But anyway,

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Speaker 3: we got it, okay, So we got to talk about

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Speaker 3: these manta horror movies from the nineteen thirties, neither of

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Speaker 3: which exactly lives up to that promise, but they're both

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Speaker 3: kind of marketed that way. So one of these movies

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Speaker 3: is called The Sea Bat Sea, not c the letter

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Speaker 3: Sea Bat Sea Bat from nineteen thirty This is a

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Speaker 3: pre code American romantic melodrama directed by Wesley Ruggles. Apparently,

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Speaker 3: in early production, Todd Browning was somehow attached to this

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Speaker 3: and it was maybe supposed to be a vehicle featuring

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Speaker 3: Lon Cheney, but that never worked out. So this was

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Speaker 3: directed by Wesley Ruggles, shot in Mexico, starring Charles Bickford,

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Speaker 3: Raquel Torres, and Nil's Astor, and it even has Boris

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Speaker 3: Karloff in a small role. This came out a year

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Speaker 3: before Karloff's big break in Frankenstein that was thirty one.

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Speaker 3: So this is set on an island in the Caribbean

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Speaker 3: and the story follows a character named Nina played by

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Speaker 3: Mexican actress Raquel Torres, who is either in love with

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Speaker 3: or is the sister of, depending on which synopsis you read.

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Speaker 3: I was not able to watch this movie before recording today.

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Speaker 3: Is either in love with or is the sister of

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Speaker 3: a sponge diver named Carl. Sadly, Carl is killed when

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Speaker 3: his diving party is attacked by a dreaded local creature

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Speaker 3: known as the sea bat, and this is described in

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Speaker 3: some sources as a giant manta ray, in other sources

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Speaker 3: as a sting ray, which, as we'll discuss more throughout

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Speaker 3: the series, that those are not the same thing, though

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Speaker 3: some publications describing the movie seem not to recognize that

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Speaker 3: there is a difference. I think they just think, like

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Speaker 3: Mantrey's arsting rays, same thing. In some effects shots you

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Speaker 3: can see it really doesn't look like either one rob

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Speaker 3: I put one screenshot in here for you. There are

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Speaker 3: shots of it underwater where it I don't know, it's

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Speaker 3: shaped kind of like an airplane or like a spaceship

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Speaker 3: of some kind, and then there are some shots where

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Speaker 3: you see it at the water line and it looks

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Speaker 3: just more like a giant shark or tuna type creature. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: after the tragic loss of Carl in this seabat related incident,

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Speaker 3: the character Nina starts getting into voodoo and then declares

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Speaker 3: that she will marry any man who can kill the

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Speaker 3: dreaded sea bat. Several men try and fail, and then

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Speaker 3: eventually a traveling preacher named Reverend Sims comes to town.

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Speaker 3: This is Charles Bickford, and he somehow both converts Nina

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Speaker 3: to Christianity. He leads her out of were packed with

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Speaker 3: voodoo and falls in love with her, and it's a

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Speaker 3: tragic romance, I guess, or I don't know how tragic.

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Speaker 3: I think. They do end up happily together at the end.

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Speaker 3: But there is a twist because it turns out Reverend

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Speaker 3: Sims is actually an escaped convict pretending to be a minister.

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Speaker 3: And then some of Nina's other jealous suitors try to

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Speaker 3: capture him and turn him in for the bounty. But

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Speaker 3: on the way there they're like on a boat, and

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Speaker 3: the boat gets attacked by the sea bat, so they

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Speaker 3: get sea batted, but Reverend Sims survives and he goes

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Speaker 3: back to Nina, and I guess they live happily ever after.

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Speaker 3: That's what I could piece together reading various synopsis online

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Speaker 3: from the American Film Institute Catalog's historical entry on the movie.

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Speaker 3: I just wanted to read a couple of production notes

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Speaker 3: because they factor into the stingray or Manta ray discussion. Quote.

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Speaker 3: According to the Telegraph News, the movie, with its crew

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Speaker 3: of sixty two personnel, was quote believed to be the

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Speaker 3: largest motion picture expedition to leave Hollywood for another American country.

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Speaker 3: The production required three pullmans and two baggage cars with

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Speaker 3: two hundred tons of equipment, and an inventory of articles

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Speaker 3: taken into Mexico under customs bond covered by more than

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Speaker 3: one thousand pages and showed a total value of eighty

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Speaker 3: thousand dollars. The article also claimed that the titular subject

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Speaker 3: of the film, the Giant Stingray, was filmed for the

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Speaker 3: first time in the sea bat.

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Speaker 1: The giant stingray, Now, I'm not sure where that would

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Speaker 1: be that there is a giant freshwater stingray, but I

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Speaker 1: think this is a creature you find in touch tanks.

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Speaker 1: This is not in captivity. I don't think this is

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Speaker 1: something that is going to be that threatening.

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Speaker 3: And once again, like I said, I couldn't watch the

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Speaker 3: whole movie, but in the clips I saw, there were

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Speaker 3: two different ways the sea bat looked, and neither of

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Speaker 3: them looked like a real animal anyway. Not clear if

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Speaker 3: anybody involved here knew the difference between a stingray and

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Speaker 3: a manta ray, which is rob cee if you follow

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Speaker 3: me here. I think that's somewhat common. Bolt of the

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Speaker 3: difference between like a great white shark and a whale shark,

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Speaker 3: like pretty different organisms. One's a filter feeder, the others

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Speaker 3: a predator right right.

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Speaker 1: And even then with the sting right that, I think

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Speaker 1: there's depending on what type of stingray, you have different

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Speaker 1: forms of feeding that are taking place.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, essentially many reviewers of Sea Bat also say

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Speaker 3: not enough sea bat seabat sequences are limited, And yeah,

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Speaker 3: so in the in the scene I did see of

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Speaker 3: it chasing the boat, it's like attacking the boat as

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Speaker 3: they're out on the water. It's basically jaws. The creature

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Speaker 3: looks like a cross between kind of like a sting ray,

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Speaker 3: but also like a shark and kind of a giant

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Speaker 3: silver tuna type thing. The other killer Manta movie that

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Speaker 3: you flagged for me is The Devil Monster, which was

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Speaker 3: released in several different years. There was a nineteen thirty

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Speaker 3: six version nineteen forty six version, also known as The

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Speaker 3: Sea Fiend. This is yet another production at least somewhat

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Speaker 3: marketed as ray horror, but it actually features relatively little

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Speaker 3: on screen ray action. So it was first made in

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Speaker 3: nineteen thirty six, re edited and re released multiple times,

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Speaker 3: including in nineteen forty six when it was beefed up

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Speaker 3: with a bunch of exploitation content, which included footage of

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Speaker 3: what appears to be sadly genuine animal cruelty, like forcing

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Speaker 3: live animals to fight each other, and then also stock

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Speaker 3: documentary footage of Native Pacific islanders just going about their

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Speaker 3: daily life included, no doubt, because this was a way

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Speaker 3: around Hayes Code prohibitions on nudity at the time. This

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00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:36,440
Speaker 3: was directed by s Edwin Graham. The basic plot of

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Speaker 3: the nineteen forty six version is about a mission to

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Speaker 3: find a missing sailor whose ship was wrecked on the Galapagos.

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Speaker 3: Though apparently huge stretches of the movie take a break

383
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Speaker 3: from the main narrative to just show octopus fights or

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Speaker 3: topless women processing grain, and the climax has several characters

385
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Speaker 3: forced to battle a giant manta ray that is said

386
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Speaker 3: to be a threat to the local tuna fishermen. So

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00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:03,280
Speaker 3: once again, you got you got a monster manta ray

388
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Speaker 3: the monster. So I looked at this part where they're

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Speaker 3: battling the ray, and it does look much more clearly

390
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Speaker 3: like a ray. Unfortunately, I think in this case that's

391
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Speaker 3: because it is a real manta ray, and the film's

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Speaker 3: action climax is just an unsimulated harpooning of a real animal.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, that's that's quite unfortunate.

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Speaker 3: So from a distance, I'm going to give a preemptive

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Speaker 3: thumbs down to both of these movies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think either of these are are contenders

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Speaker 1: for weird house cinema treatment.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but it does raise this question, like because it's

399
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Speaker 3: framing them, framing rays as this monster that attacks humans

400
00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 3: and you know, threatens boats and all. This was it

401
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Speaker 3: common before the modern era to view manta rays as

402
00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 3: a kind of monster, or at least a potentially dangerous

403
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Speaker 3: animal like its cousins the predatory sharks.

404
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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 3: And yes, I did find evidence that this was just

406
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Speaker 3: kind of common sailor's lore that rays would you know,

407
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Speaker 3: could be dangerous attack you, They might attack boats, they

408
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 3: might attack divers. One article I came across that was

409
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:10,360
Speaker 3: recounting some of this folklore was from nineteen ten by

410
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Speaker 3: the American biologist Theodore Gill. It's called the Story of

411
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:16,920
Speaker 3: the Devilfish. That name can be a little confusing because

412
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 3: the term devilfish or devil ray is still used today

413
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:25,200
Speaker 3: to refer to a number of species within the genus Mobula,

414
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Speaker 3: and that is the genus to which the manta rays belong. Basically,

415
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Speaker 3: manta rays are the largest couple of species within the

416
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Speaker 3: genus Mobula, and then some of the other species within

417
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Speaker 3: the genus Mobula are often called like devil rays or devilfish.

418
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:43,359
Speaker 3: But the term, I think also is still sometimes used

419
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,880
Speaker 3: to refer to just the rays in this genome more generally,

420
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Speaker 3: so I know that's confusing. I think the lower Gill

421
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:53,160
Speaker 3: is talking about in this article probably does not observe

422
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 3: distinctions between devil rays and manta rays as we would

423
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Speaker 3: sort them today. It's probably just sailors are looking at

424
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Speaker 3: this thing's based manta ray shaped. These things probably look

425
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Speaker 3: mostly the same to sailors. That's got you know, it's

426
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,199
Speaker 3: got the wings, and it's got something that looks like

427
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 3: horns in the front, and it's big. So that's one

428
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 3: of these devilfish or devil rays. Gil in the beginning

429
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Speaker 3: of this article attests to common associations made between what

430
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Speaker 3: he calls the great ray and devils, vampires, and bats,

431
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 3: and he mentions that common names include the sea bat

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Speaker 3: like in the movie. And then concerning these associations with bats,

433
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 3: he's quoting another author named Holder, and he writes, quote

434
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 3: Holder thought that quote no more diabolical creature could be imagined.

435
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,840
Speaker 3: They resembled enormous bats, and in following one another around

436
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 3: the circle, raised the outer tip of the long wing

437
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,920
Speaker 3: like fin high out of the water in a graceful curve,

438
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 3: the other being deeply submerged. But then Gil goes on

439
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 3: to say, quote another name for the monster ray has

440
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 3: been borrowed from the Spanish. Among the fishermen and especially

441
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 3: the pearl divers of Central America and western Mexico, it

442
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 3: is known as the manta. This is a Spanish term

443
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 3: meaning originally blanket, and was given by the fishermen in

444
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 3: parts of Spain and the island of Mallorca to a

445
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:19,359
Speaker 3: species of the Mediterranean, and extended thence to similar fishes

446
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 3: of other regions. It has been explained that the name

447
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 3: was given by the Spaniards of America to the devilfish

448
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,919
Speaker 3: because it was alleged to hover over and cover a

449
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 3: fisherman at the bottom as a blanket preparatory to killing

450
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:37,160
Speaker 3: him for good. The belief, indeed, that the devilfish may

451
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 3: so attack a man, is not only widely spread, but

452
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 3: of an ancient origin. Such an idea, however, is contrary

453
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 3: to our knowledge of the fish. Like several other of

454
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:51,640
Speaker 3: the gigantic sealations, its diet is in almost inverse ratio

455
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 3: to its size. So already in nineteen ten, Theodore Ghill

456
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:58,959
Speaker 3: is not going for the lord that the rays fold

457
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 3: down like a death blanket over the divers to cover

458
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 3: them on the bottom and prepare them for death. But

459
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:06,920
Speaker 3: I did want to say I think he is sort

460
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 3: of onto something when commenting about the idea of the

461
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 3: diet being in almost inverse ratio to its size. This

462
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 3: is not like a hard and fast rule, and there

463
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 3: are very big, active predators that prey on large animals.

464
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 3: But many of the largest animals in the ocean, and

465
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:29,400
Speaker 3: the largest species within different marine lineages, are filter feeders,

466
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 3: feeding entirely on tiny organisms and small bits of organic matter.

467
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 3: And this is true of course of the giant oceanic

468
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:40,159
Speaker 3: manta ray. Now why would that be If you have

469
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 3: a big filter feeding surface and basically like a big

470
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 3: kind of bowl shaped mouth that functions like a sieve,

471
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 3: and a big body that can store a lot of

472
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 3: energy for time in between feeding booms, it can be

473
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 3: an awesomely efficient way to live, and with a large

474
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,440
Speaker 3: body yourself, you don't need to worry a whole lot

475
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 3: about predators. From what I've been reading, the only real

476
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,919
Speaker 3: predators of the giant oceanic manta rays are humans, of course,

477
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 3: and maybe some toothed whales like orcas, and I think

478
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 3: sharks may sometimes bite them as well, but I understand

479
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 3: sharks are not major predators for giant mantas.

480
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll come back to this, but basically that's the case,

481
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:23,159
Speaker 1: but with some variations depending on exactly where in the

482
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: world you are, Like the actually what the surrounding environment

483
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: is consisting of, and you know where the mantas are living.

484
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in general that there are a lot of

485
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 3: upsides to being a big filter feeding organism. If you're big,

486
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:39,879
Speaker 3: you don't have to worry much about predators. You don't

487
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 3: have to be all that like fast or dangerous or anything.

488
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:44,679
Speaker 3: You just kind of have to like cruise around with

489
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 3: a big filter feeding surface, scoop in a lot of stuff,

490
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:50,679
Speaker 3: just take it all in and get huge amounts of

491
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 3: biomassing going straight into your metabolism, and then store a

492
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 3: lot of it for later. That's another thing that people

493
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 3: often don't think about about the advantages of having a

494
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 3: big body by a lot. You know, you think, well,

495
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 3: it's good to be bigger if you're in a fight.

496
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:06,679
Speaker 3: I mean sometimes that's true, yes, but it's also just

497
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 3: like you've got a big freezer. Basically you can store

498
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 3: a lot of energy in that body.

499
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: But of course a big part of this is in

500
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: doing this as an organism, you become a specialist. Right.

501
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 3: So if you're a giant manta ray and you come

502
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 3: across some divers in the water, I mean those divers

503
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 3: might be delicious and full of nutrition, but you just

504
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 3: there's nothing much you can do with them. Like, you

505
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,720
Speaker 3: don't even have the tools really to eat that diver

506
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 3: if you wanted to.

507
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that ship sailed long ago. Well, one can only

508
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: imagine that this is based perhaps on the fact that,

509
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: of course they're big, and it's natural for a human

510
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: being in the water outside of their element to be

511
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: a little spooked by large fish. I mean, that's common

512
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: you encounter, that's snorkeling. I feel, unless I know for

513
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: certain what I'm looking at, I would be a little

514
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: nervous around a large fish in the water. And then

515
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: on top of that, we have this we've already talked

516
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: about how there are observations of manta rays being curious

517
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: concerning humans, Manta rays more than devil rays, I'm to understand,

518
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: But that would of course add to it. If you're

519
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,479
Speaker 1: already a little nervous around a big animal and it

520
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: is even halfway curious about you, that might also lead

521
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: to this kind of conclusion.

522
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 3: Right, And while manta rays are very well known for

523
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 3: not being aggressive towards humans, I mean, it would still

524
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 3: be totally possible for one to just like injure you

525
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 3: by accident if you're getting too close. I mean, they're

526
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 3: big animals, you know, Yeah, and roll over, so like

527
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 3: you just you know, keep your distance.

528
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's my understanding that as far as any

529
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: kind of like recorded accounts of even minor injuries concerning

530
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: manta rays and injuries to human beings, it's involved people

531
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: getting too close to them, trying to ride them, and

532
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: so forth, which you are not supposed to do.

533
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 3: So, despite their reputation as diabolical, you know, vampire bats

534
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 3: of the sea, or as some kind of underwater death blanket, no,

535
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 3: giant mant rays or mantrays generally devil rays as well,

536
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 3: are generally not to be thought of as a threat

537
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 3: to humans. Generally not very aggressive and not anything to

538
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 3: be all that concerned about. But there is one other

539
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 3: thing I came across in Gill's article that really does

540
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 3: paint a kind of scary picture, not because of the

541
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 3: ray doing anything threatening, but just because of the sonic

542
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 3: atmosphere it creates. And this is Gil describing the experience

543
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 3: of what it's like to be around one of these

544
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 3: giant rays jumping out of the water, which they often do,

545
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 3: so Gil writes, quote, it is the great leaps out

546
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,479
Speaker 3: of the water that are most striking, especially during the

547
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 3: stillness of the night Holder on such an occasion on

548
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 3: the outer FLOORI to reef first encountered the fish and

549
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 3: then quoting Holder, he says, quote, there came out of

550
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 3: the darkness near at hand, a rushing, swishing noise, then

551
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 3: a clap as of thunder, which seemed to go roaring

552
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 3: and reverberating away over the reef like the discharge of

553
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 3: a cannon. Not hard to imagine how that could engender

554
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 3: a sense of fear about this animal.

555
00:30:57,640 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: Absolutely.

556
00:30:58,480 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 3: Yeah.

557
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: The authors of Guide to Manta and Devil Rays of

558
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,600
Speaker 1: the World, Stevens aid all they mentioned that if you're

559
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: in the water when this happens, you definitely feel it.

560
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 1: So yeah, Mantas and devils devil rays all engage in

561
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: leaping behavior like this, sometimes several meters out of the water,

562
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: and it's unknown exactly why they do it, which I

563
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 1: guess is similar to other fish which we've talked about

564
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 1: on the show in the past. But the predominant theories

565
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: involve either the dislodging of parasites, and as we'll discuss

566
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: and I think the next episode we do on mantas,

567
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: they geary a pretty large parasite load. The other possibility

568
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: is communication. Now the authors note that this would mean

569
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: there's much more to their social interaction than is often thought.

570
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 1: But the basic hypothesis here is that these different mobilid species,

571
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: especially the manta, they slap back down on the surface

572
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 1: of the water, and in doing so they create a

573
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: pressure wave this thunderclap that you reference, that could then

574
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: be detected by other arrays of the same species miles away.

575
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: Given that they're often observed leaping before feeding, they could

576
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: be alerting other mantas to a feeding opportunity.

577
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, okay.

578
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 1: And why would they do that, because that's why would

579
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: you want to tell the other rays about all this

580
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 1: great food you just found? Well, the authors point out,

581
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: because food is plentiful, but the opportunity itself to feed

582
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: is fleeting, subject to the tides and so forth. So

583
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: the signal might be to bring in as many fellow

584
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: rays as possible to engage in group feeding strategies, which

585
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,959
Speaker 1: we'll get into in a bit here that also increase

586
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: individual food halls. So you know, let's all do it

587
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: while the getting's good. Let's all feed together and we'll

588
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: all feast.

589
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 3: Ah interesting okay.

590
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, some devil rays might

591
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: engage in breaching is a fitness signal for mating. But

592
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: again that's again that's a hypothesis based on just how

593
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: it seems to time with other things that they're doing

594
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: in the water. At any rate, as we giving back

595
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: to human sentiments, manta rays and the idea that their

596
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: vampiric death blankets and so forth, Western sentiments seem to

597
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: turn in a major way during the nineteen seventies despite

598
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: the Jaws movies, with exposure to the reality that manta

599
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: rays are anything but the devilfish of a sailor's legend.

600
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: They are the epitome of a gentle giant, indifferent or

601
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: even curious considering humans in the water, and not aggressive

602
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: at all. Again, I think the rare cases you'll find

603
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: of people being injured at all by a manta are

604
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: because they were intentionally trying to get way too close

605
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: to them, and as far as the harvesting of their

606
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: gills goes, Manta tourism has apparently been a major factor

607
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: thus far in the fight against this practice. People around

608
00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 1: the world continue to spend a lot of money to

609
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 1: observe manta rays in the wild. In that twenty eighteen

610
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: guide to Devil Rays of the World Book, The authors

611
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: share that at the time of its publication, the global

612
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: estimate for direct revenue generated by manta tourism with something

613
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: like seventy three million annually, with associated tourism revenue pushing

614
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: that up to like one hundred and forty million annually.

615
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: So all of that basically translates to the realization that

616
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: if manta tourism is in the mix, a live manta

617
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: ray is worth far more than a dead one, and

618
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: so manta tourism, like a lot of marine tourism, plays

619
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:26,319
Speaker 1: an important role in manta conservation. At the same time,

620
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: of course, there's a careful balance there, right, because you

621
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: want people to be excited about the mantas. You want

622
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: people to come out and see the manta, spend money

623
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: on the mantas and thus helping to protect them. But

624
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 1: also you want to avoid detrimental side effects. You know

625
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: that can occur in a number of forms. You don't

626
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: want divers and snorkelers getting way too close to the animals.

627
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: You also don't want unsustainable practices at resorts and on

628
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 1: liver boards and so forth. You know, the ships are

629
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,879
Speaker 1: going to take divers and snorkelers out to see these creatures.

630
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 1: You know, you have to walk that line. I think

631
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: in my understanding is that everyone involved continues to figure

632
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 1: out exactly where that line falls. So at this point

633
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: I thought we'd run through some basics about manta rays

634
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: and some associated devil rays to finish out this episode.

635
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: So mantis and devil rays belong to a group collectively

636
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: known as the mobulids of the family mobili day zooming

637
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: out their rays of the order mileobataforms, which contains twelve

638
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:43,359
Speaker 1: families three hundred and seventy species of rays, including sting

639
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 1: rays of various species. Moboloids are most closely related to

640
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 1: eagle rays and clown nose rays of this order, which

641
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: are bottom feeders. They sift for mollusks and crustaceans on

642
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 1: the seabed. Moboloids, however, have adapted to pelagic filter feeding

643
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: in the open water, similar to the evolutionary path we

644
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 1: see with like baleen whales and whale sharks. You know,

645
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: as we've been discussing, like specialize in feeding on all

646
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: the little things in the water. Eat the cloud if

647
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 1: you will, yes, So they use their mouths and modified

648
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: gill plates in their filter feeding. The devil ray that

649
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 1: we've been discussing. These are much smaller. There are a

650
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 1: few different varieties, with the largest I believe being the

651
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:28,799
Speaker 1: Chilean devil ray or sickle fin devil ray. It has

652
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: a maximum disc width of eleven point two feet or

653
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 1: three hundred and forty centimeters, and it can weigh up

654
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: to eight hundred and eighty two pounds or four hundred kilograms.

655
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: The spinetail devil ray is also rather big. I mention

656
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: it because its scientific name is Mobula mobular, which is

657
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 1: always fun. And again the reef manta ray Mobula alfredi,

658
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,479
Speaker 1: which sounds delicious but it's not on the menu, comes

659
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: in at a maximum disc with of fifteen feet or

660
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty centimeters and a weight of fifteen

661
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: hundred pounds or seven hundred kilograms. But then again, the

662
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: oceanic manta is the biggest. That's Mobula of bostras, and

663
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: it can reach a disc width of twenty three feet

664
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: or seven hundred centimeters and a weight of up to

665
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: forty four hundred pounds or two thousand kilograms. They are

666
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: the largest of all rays, and actually I'm to understand

667
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: the fifth largest fish. Period. There's also some argument to

668
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: be made for a possible third species of extent manta,

669
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: a Caribbean manta closely related to the oceanic manta, only

670
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,879
Speaker 1: smaller now. In addition to those gill plates, the other

671
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: defining characteristics of the maboloids are their devil horns. That

672
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 1: certainly seems to lend to this idea that there's some

673
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: sort of evil, vampioic creature. They're like bats, and then

674
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 1: they have devil horns. These are not horns, of course,

675
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: these are modified cephalic fins. So the rays use these

676
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: special fins to funnel plankton into their mouths during feeding.

677
00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 1: So the gill plates that we were just these are

678
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: supported by five pairs of gill arches. You can see

679
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: these when you see some like wide mouth photographs of

680
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 1: these various organisms, and each species both slightly different gill

681
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,439
Speaker 1: plate structures to capture particular target prey. We were talking

682
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: about the ratio between the size of the organism and

683
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: the size of the prey. Manta rays, the biggest, have

684
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:26,360
Speaker 1: gill plates evolved to capture much smaller plectonic prey compared

685
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:29,799
Speaker 1: to various devil ray species. For example, they're going after

686
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: the real small stuff. Their feeding is really interesting though.

687
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: On top of this, because their bodies are you know,

688
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: we think of them as being largely flat, you know,

689
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 1: they're kind of flattened out, but as Stevens and co

690
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 1: authors point out during feeding quote, their once flattened body

691
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: and mouth becomes a giant black hole with the pectoral

692
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: fins serving as wings that power the ray through the water,

693
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:54,359
Speaker 1: and then the gill plates do the rest. So yeah,

694
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:57,919
Speaker 1: they expand out, they become this like giant gaping maw

695
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 1: to just consume all the plankton they can get. And

696
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: so that's the basic strategy. Open your mouth really wide,

697
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: use your cephalic fins to help guide the food into

698
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:10,959
Speaker 1: the mouth, and then you know, go in a straight line,

699
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 1: just go straight through the food, you know, eat the cloud.

700
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: But that's just one of eight and possibly nine different

701
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:23,399
Speaker 1: observed feeding strategies that you see in rays, with only

702
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 1: half of those being used at least observed in devil rays.

703
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: So I'm going to roll through these because they're they're

704
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Some are only slight variations based on the

705
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: other ones. But so first of all, you have straight

706
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 1: straight feeding, so this is usually horizontal, but sometimes it's vertical,

707
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: and the distance depends on prey frequency. So you have

708
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 1: a cloud of plankton, a big school of plankton or something. Well,

709
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: you just move straight through it, eat it, eat it up,

710
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: swallow it up, and then you do a one hundred

711
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: and eighty degree turn at the end and repeat as needed.

712
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: Number two This is manta's only apparently, and it's surface feeding.

713
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 1: So this is basically straight feeding, except right at the

714
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: surface of the water. All right, all right, now it

715
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:07,720
Speaker 1: starts getting interesting. Chain feeding. So up to several dozen

716
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,280
Speaker 1: individuals proceeding in a line feeding.

717
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 3: Oh, it's funny that that would actually work. I would

718
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 3: imagine the further back you are in the line, maybe

719
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 3: you're not getting anything. But no, I wonder if going

720
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:21,440
Speaker 3: through a head kind of creates a vortex, maybe that

721
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:22,839
Speaker 3: sucks some more things in.

722
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:25,879
Speaker 1: I think that that might be what's happening. And also

723
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 1: we just have to remember we're dealing with an abundance

724
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: of food here, and this ties in. This is exactly

725
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 1: and this is an example of the social feeding technique

726
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 1: group feeding technique that they might hypothetically be calling other

727
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 1: mantas to engage in. Okay of next piggyback feeding. So

728
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,320
Speaker 1: this is manta's only and it's actually only been observed

729
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:51,280
Speaker 1: in reef mantas. So you'll have a smaller manta, usually

730
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 1: a male, and it finds a larger usually female, matches

731
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: her pace, and it's like stacked on top of her

732
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: and feeds as she feeding in a straight line. And

733
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll get additional mantas stacked on top of that

734
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: until the bottom most manta swims off and displaces the

735
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: whole stack. All right, here's where it gets a little

736
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 1: fancy summer salt feeding. So this is where they're going

737
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:15,359
Speaker 1: in a straight line, and then they'll do a three

738
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty degree loop in the water while feeding,

739
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: usually just one or two loops out of straight feeding,

740
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 1: but they might do several dozen continuous summer salts, depending

741
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: I guess on how it's going for them and with

742
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: the plankton. This next one, though, this is where it gets.

743
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 1: This one gets crazy cyclone feeding. What Yeah, So this

744
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,319
Speaker 1: is apparently reef mantas only at least as far as

745
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: observations go. And it begins as just a line of

746
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 1: chain feeding straight feeders. But then you know something, something changes.

747
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it's in just how much planked in

748
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: they're encountering, but the chain loops back on itself to

749
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: form a circle. And now we have a circle of

750
00:41:56,120 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 1: mantas feeding, and then more mantas begin to form, to

751
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 1: join in and become part of the formation, and so

752
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 1: we end up with a counterclockwise cyclone that might ultimately

753
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: entail one hundred and fifty individuals and it might even

754
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:12,240
Speaker 1: last up to an hour.

755
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 3: Wow.

756
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: And again the idea here seems to be that these

757
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: group feeding scenarios, when they're able to pull them together

758
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 1: like it actually results in a bounty for everyone involved.

759
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:28,839
Speaker 1: On top of this, we have sideways feeding. This is

760
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 1: maybe not that fancy. It's just the manta ray doing

761
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:36,319
Speaker 1: chain feeding or straight feeding, but on their sides. Then

762
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: we have bottom feeding, which I guess you can think

763
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: of as a return to form feeding along the bottom

764
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: like some of the other rays that they're more distantly

765
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: related to. And then a ninth possible feeding technique that

766
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 1: the authors here observe in devil rays is what they

767
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: call lunge feeding, and that's rapid feeding acceleration into dense

768
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 1: schools of prey. Again, this would I think only be

769
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 1: devil rays which are going to be you know, the

770
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: smaller of the species involved here. So mangolods first pop

771
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: up in the fossil records some twenty eight million years

772
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:13,840
Speaker 1: ago during the Middle Oligocene epoch, So according to stevens

773
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: at All, they're among the most recently evolved of the

774
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: elasmo Bronx. This includes all sharks and battle morphs, so

775
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:25,360
Speaker 1: you know sharks, rays, and so forth, the various cartilage

776
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: fish swimmers of the oceans. They've evolved to, of course

777
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: become exceptional open water swimmers with sufficient speed bursts of

778
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:36,720
Speaker 1: up to I believe twenty miles per hour or thirty

779
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:41,359
Speaker 1: three kilometers per hour. And this was interesting, and I

780
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 1: have trouble exactly understanding this how this works, but I

781
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 1: totally believe it. They say that they're flattened shapes apparently

782
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: make it more difficult for predators to bite onto them,

783
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 1: hold onto them, or certainly to target vital areas that way.

784
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:00,040
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I wonder how that would work, because I

785
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 3: would imagine, you know, if you're kind of cookie shaped,

786
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 3: if you're flat, it might not be that hard to

787
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 3: take a bite of you. But I wonder if doing

788
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 3: that you're maybe able to keep your most vital parts

789
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 3: kind of central So if something does bite you, it

790
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:14,840
Speaker 3: gets a less vital part of you.

791
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, like maybe you're more it's more possible that you

792
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 1: get a bite of a fin or wing if you will. Yeah,

793
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 1: this is something they get in get into in the book.

794
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:30,880
Speaker 1: They do rapidly heal from serious injuries. The book displays

795
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 1: a few different rather dramatic examples via photographs of rays

796
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,320
Speaker 1: with clear bites taken out of their fins, out of

797
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 1: their wings, and then a subsequent photo showing how those

798
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 1: like massive bites have mostly but you know, imperfectly healed

799
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:53,240
Speaker 1: at a later observation date. And I mentioned this already,

800
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: but predation rates also seem to depend on particular communities

801
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 1: and environments. So, for example, the authors of this book

802
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 1: point out that mantas and Mozambique display far more evidence

803
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 1: of shark attacks compared to those in the Maldives, where

804
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:08,760
Speaker 1: less than fifteen percent of mantas show evidence of bites.

805
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I was specifically reading about off the

806
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 3: coast of Mozambique, where there was common evidence that mantis

807
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 3: had been bitten by sharks but had survived the encounter

808
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 3: because they grew up in the wounds healed.

809
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the healing of those wounds also involves some

810
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 1: of the cleaning fish, which we'll get back to in

811
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: the next episode we do on mantas. All right, well,

812
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 1: we're going to go and close this episode of Stuff

813
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:34,319
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, but we're going to be back.

814
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be this week. I

815
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 1: think it's going to be next week based on the

816
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: way the schedules coming together. But we'll be back with

817
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: at least one more episode on the Manta Ray. If

818
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: not a couple, we'll just see how it comes together.

819
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 1: Just a reminder for everyone out there, The Stuff to

820
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a science and culture podcast with

821
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:54,880
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822
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:56,920
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00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:04,880
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826
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:06,839
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827
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: stbim Podcasts on Instagram. That's our more recent Instagram account

828
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,480
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829
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:15,759
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830
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Speaker 1: we are on letterboxed. We are weird House on that platform,

831
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,760
Speaker 1: and uh yeah you can otherwise just get the podcast

832
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Speaker 1: wherever you get your episodes of podcasts.

833
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

834
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:30,839
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

835
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,320
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

836
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:35,319
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

837
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,200
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838
00:46:38,200 --> 00:46:44,960
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839
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,560
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