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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick. In

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Speaker 2: this episode, we're going to begin our look at the

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Speaker 2: manta ray because I very recently had the privilege to

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Speaker 2: travel with my family to Raja Ampat in Indonesia for

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Speaker 2: a week of snorkeling. And during that snorkeling, I got

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Speaker 2: to observe manta rays while in the water snorkeling, and

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Speaker 2: it was just a mind blowing experience. It was just magical.

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Speaker 2: I can't quite put it into words exactly, but it

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Speaker 2: was one of these situations where as I was snorkeling

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Speaker 2: out with the other snorkelers towards this manta ray cleaning station,

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Speaker 2: I found myself like mouthing, oh my god, oh my

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Speaker 2: God through my breathing apparatus.

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Speaker 3: The cleaning station is that, do I understand right? That's

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

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

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Speaker 3: kind of contaminants off of their bodies.

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Speaker 2: Correct. This is this is pretty remarkable in its own right,

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Speaker 2: and I think we'll get into that more in the

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Speaker 2: second episode of this series. But yes, that's what we

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Speaker 2: were observing. These were some reef manta rays that had

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Speaker 2: come out to the cleaning station so that these various

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Speaker 2: fish could eat their parasites. And yeah, it was just

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Speaker 2: magical to watch these creatures move through the water like

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Speaker 2: some sort of animate black and white cape, you know,

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Speaker 2: some sort of an angel or demon, just something almost

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Speaker 2: 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 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're very, very dramatic, but also, as we'll

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Speaker 2: be discussing, relatively drama free at least as far as

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Speaker 2: what they're doing and what they're bringing to the table.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of manta ray drama, but it's it's

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Speaker 2: almost entirely on us, the humans. Yeah. So I want

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Speaker 2: to mention up here at the top that we did

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Speaker 2: this snorkling at the Missoul Marine Reserve. This is also

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Speaker 2: where you find the Missoul Resort. The resort is just

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Speaker 2: one leg of the overall conservation mission here, which actually

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Speaker 2: started before the tourism part of the operation, like the

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Speaker 2: tourism part apparently was then built up afterwards to fund

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Speaker 2: the conservation mission, and I can't say enough good things

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Speaker 2: about this place. Founded on the side of a former

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Speaker 2: shark finning camp and in an area that had been

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Speaker 2: previously targeted by illegal lumber operations and dynamite fishing, and

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Speaker 2: now through the Missoul Foundation, they manage about three hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand acres or twelve two hundred square kilometers of marine

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Speaker 2: reserve with two distinct no take zones. They engage in

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Speaker 2: various conservation efforts, such as the Missoul Manta Program, a

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Speaker 2: reshark program, and this includes a program to reintroduce Indo

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Speaker 2: Pacific leopard sharks, and they partner with various organizations of

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Speaker 2: various like aquariums around the world old who have the

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Speaker 2: right eggs egg secs to reintroduce and their partners include

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Speaker 2: Atlanta's own Georgia Aquarium. They're also involved in coral reef restoration,

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Speaker 2: sustainability efforts in various 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 2: Yeah, yeah, my wife got us into it, and you know,

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Speaker 2: we'll go on snorkeling excursions here and there, and I

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Speaker 2: have to say, yeah, this is the best snorkeling of

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Speaker 2: my life thus far. This part of the world is

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Speaker 2: in what's known as the Coral Triangle. This is an

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Speaker 2: incredibly rich and diverse marine environment that happens to include,

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Speaker 2: according to the NOAA, quote, over six hundred reef building

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Speaker 2: coral species, seventy five percent of all species known to science,

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Speaker 2: three thousand species of reef fish, forty percent of the

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Speaker 2: world's coral reef species, and six of the world's seven

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Speaker 2: marine turtle species. Also three quarters of known molluscs.

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Speaker 3: So it's happening.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, just a very very rich place. And

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Speaker 2: you know, I'll no doubt come back to other things

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Speaker 2: I observed there in future episodes. But one of the

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Speaker 2: many highlights again was getting to observe these reef manta

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Speaker 2: rays in the wild. So we'll get back to the

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Speaker 2: details of the different the two main different manta species,

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Speaker 2: but this is the second largest of the rays and

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Speaker 2: one of only two possibly three extant manta ray species.

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Speaker 2: They can weigh up to fifteen hundred pounds or seven

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Speaker 2: hundred kilograms, and that's with a maximum disc width of

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Speaker 2: fifteen feet or four hundred and fifty centimeters if you were.

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Speaker 2: I guess you could sort of frame that as their

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Speaker 2: 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.

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Speaker 2: Correct. Yeah, and we'll come back to the stats on

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Speaker 2: them in a minute. But yeah, in both cases, great

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Speaker 2: bat like black and white creatures that seem to glide

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Speaker 2: and soar through the depths. And I think I had

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Speaker 2: observed some in the water while standing on a sandbar

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Speaker 2: elsewhere in the world previously, but this was my first

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Speaker 2: and only time getting to see them while in the water,

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Speaker 2: 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 firsthand

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: the animal that they have not experienced with any other fish. Because,

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Speaker 3: to be clear, the manta is not like a mammal

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Speaker 3: like dolphins or whales might be that you might be

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Speaker 3: more you know, disposed, you might have more experience hearing

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Speaker 3: about these kind of connections people have with marine mammals.

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Speaker 3: But these are fish, you know, we think of them

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Speaker 3: as these very kind of cold creatures of limited intelligence,

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Speaker 3: kind of like sharks that seem to be mainly just

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Speaker 3: kind of machines acting on impulse. They don't have that

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Speaker 3: feeling of emotion and intelligence you might get from a mammal.

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Speaker 3: But in this case, this is a fish that lots

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Speaker 3: of people say, does it does have that feeling. It's

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Speaker 3: like it's there and it's alive and it's thinking.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great point. And I think we'll

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Speaker 2: probably get into the intel, the brain, the intelligence of

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Speaker 2: the manta ray, especially in the next episode. But but

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Speaker 2: you do see this observation a lot. There seems to

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Speaker 2: be a curiosity on the part of the manta, and

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Speaker 2: in many ways, this kind of curiosity reminds us of

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Speaker 2: our interactions with mammalian marine species like dolphins and whales. Now,

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Speaker 2: in the case of our own experiences, I want to

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Speaker 2: stress that we observe them while snorkeling, rather than say

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Speaker 2: that we swam with them. I guess you could technically

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Speaker 2: say we swam them with them. We're in the same

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Speaker 2: button body of water with them, but we did keep

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Speaker 2: our distance. We did not chase the manta rays, and

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Speaker 2: we certainly did not attempt attempt to touch these gentle

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Speaker 2: giants of the sea.

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Speaker 3: I assume that's discouraged.

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Speaker 2: It is discouraged, yes, And in discussing this, like the

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Speaker 2: human desire to touch the manta ray, I wanted to

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Speaker 2: get into a preliminary discussion here about the human attitudes

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Speaker 2: toward the manta ray because this is important because ultimately

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Speaker 2: human attitudes towards the manta rays also plays into their

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Speaker 2: endangered status in the world, certainly with the oceanic man

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Speaker 2: manta so manta rays enjoy a pretty wide range. They're

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Speaker 2: found in warm, temperate, subtropical and tropical waters around the world.

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Speaker 2: As such, humans and coastal areas within their range have

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Speaker 2: known about them for a very long time. Hawaiian, Micronesian,

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Speaker 2: Southeast Asian, and South American traditions have viewed the manta

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Speaker 2: in varying supernatural life, as reincarnations of human souls, as

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Speaker 2: avatars of a creator deity, as divine protectors, as divine messengers,

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Speaker 2: and as such, they've even enjoyed traditional protected status amongst

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Speaker 2: certain groups, at least at different times. But there's also

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Speaker 2: a darker side to human attitudes toward manta rays. Over

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Speaker 2: the past couple of decades, the demand for manta ray

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Speaker 2: gill plates in traditional medicine, particularly traditional Chinese medicine, has

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Speaker 2: proven devastating for manta ray populations. Based on the unproven

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Speaker 2: and to be clear of pseudoscientific idea, the consumption of

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Speaker 2: these gills in some sort of like powdered driver and

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Speaker 2: or powdered form can boost the human immune system, among

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Speaker 2: other supposed benefits, and the story of how this is

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Speaker 2: really interesting in its own right. I was reading about

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Speaker 2: this in a paper by O'Malley at All titled characterization

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Speaker 2: of the Trade in Manta and Devil ray gill plates

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Speaker 2: in China and Southeast Asia through Trader Surveys, published in

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen in Aquatic Conservation, Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, and

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Speaker 2: they point out that mention of manta gill plates didn't

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Speaker 2: pop up in traditional Chinese medicine publications until around nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventy six. This to be clear, despite the fact that

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Speaker 2: traditional Chinese medicine itself is very very old, going back

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Speaker 2: like five thousand years, a widespread and popular form of

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Speaker 2: alternative medicine. But the consumption of these gill plates is

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Speaker 2: not some sort of deep seated tradition in this alternative

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Speaker 2: 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 2: Yeah. One of my key sources for these episodes is

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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen's Guide to the Manta and Devil Rays of

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Speaker 2: the World by Stevens, Fernando Dan, and Dyscaria. And in

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Speaker 2: this book, which I'll keep coming back to, they say

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Speaker 2: that this was all likely a quote clever marketing of

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Speaker 2: a readily available and cheap bycatch product. So, in other words,

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Speaker 2: various unsustainable fishing practices would be pulling mantas in any way,

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Speaker 2: and then they're like, well, let's market the parts of

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Speaker 2: this creature and sell it. And then as popularity builds,

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Speaker 2: it translates into direct targeting of mantas by what they

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Speaker 2: describe as boom and bust fisheries. So for reasons we'll

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Speaker 2: discuss in these episodes. These are vulnerable species that do

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Speaker 2: not easily endure this sort of targeted fishing, so these

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Speaker 2: operations inherently produce very short lived paydays while doing long

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Speaker 2: term damage to the populations. They also note that the

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Speaker 2: rise in popularity may also tie in with the rise

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Speaker 2: in human respiratory illnesses do in part to pollution, and

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Speaker 2: again these pseudoscientific claims. Basically, we're dealing with the idea that, Okay,

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Speaker 2: the these are filters for the fish, and therefore, on

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Speaker 2: some level, if I consume them, it's going to help

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Speaker 2: filter me out as well, it's going to protect me

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Speaker 2: from the things that would harm me in the environment.

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Speaker 2: So again, gill plates would seem to be a relatively

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Speaker 2: recent addition to traditional Chinese medicine and one that has

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Speaker 2: had a marked impact on the populations of these vulnerable

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Speaker 2: fish species. The reef manta is currently flagged as vulnerable,

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Speaker 2: while the 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 2: And then historically, on top of all of this, there

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Speaker 2: are Western European misconceptions and myths about manta and devil rays,

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Speaker 2: rooted apparently in the observations of sailors, but managing to

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Speaker 2: survive well into the early twentieth century and manifesting in

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Speaker 2: written fiction as well as in at least a couple

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Speaker 2: 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 seventies

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Speaker 3: through the nineties as 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 into

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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 2: Yeah, that's that is a great observation, especially since what

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Speaker 2: is it fifty years of jobs now celebrating a major birthday.

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Speaker 3: But yeay, we I mean, you can't deny the power

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Speaker 3: of Jaws. Like, as much as I hate to contribute

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Speaker 3: to the demonizing of e ocean creatures, Jaws is just

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

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Speaker 2: It is. It's a great film. It changed movies forever.

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Speaker 2: You can't talk about blockbusters without talking about Jaws. You

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Speaker 2: can't talk about monster movies really without talking about Jaws.

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Speaker 2: But it is interesting in pointing out that films like

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Speaker 2: Jaws arise in the nineteen seventies and then various other

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Speaker 2: creatures are drawn into the mix. But the seventies seem

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Speaker 2: to be the time period during which in the Europeans

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Speaker 2: in the West woke up to the idea that, oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: manta rays are fine. They're like absolutely not threatening anybody.

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Speaker 2: Not only are they not threatening, not actually threatening. It's

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Speaker 2: hard to conceive of them being threatening, Like, we can't

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Speaker 2: even think about making a monster movie about something so tame.

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Speaker 2: 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 shape. 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 who

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Speaker 3: that one?

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Speaker 2: Not specifically, but I was reading doing some additional reading,

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Speaker 2: and there are various examples of creatures in sci fi

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Speaker 2: that say, live in the atmosphere of Jupiter. They're at

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Speaker 2: least partially based on the mantray. Oh, Like, it just

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Speaker 2: has a pleasing ethereal form. Again, it's like to the

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Speaker 2: point where it's almost hard for us to put ourselves

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Speaker 2: in the mindset of someone who sees a manta ray

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Speaker 2: 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 nineteenth 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: mantray's our stingrays 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 sea bat

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Speaker 3: related incident, the character Nina starts getting into voodoo and

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Speaker 3: then declares that she will marry any man who can

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Speaker 3: kill the dreaded sea bat. Several men try and fail

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Speaker 3: and then eventually a traveling preacher named Reverend Sims comes

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Speaker 3: to town. This is Charles Bickford, and he somehow both

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Speaker 3: converts Nina to Christianity. He leads her out of her

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Speaker 3: pact with Voodoo and falls in love with her. And

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Speaker 3: it's a tragic romance, I guess, or I don't know

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Speaker 3: how tragic. I think they do end up happily together

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Speaker 3: at the end. But there is a twist because it

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Speaker 3: turns out Reverend Sims is actually an escaped convict pretending

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Speaker 3: to be a minister. And then some of Nina's other

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Speaker 3: jealous suitors try to capture him and turn him in

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Speaker 3: for the bounty. But on the way there, they're like

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Speaker 3: on a boat, and the boat gets attacked by the

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Speaker 3: sea bat so they get sea batted, but Reverend Sims

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Speaker 3: survives and he goes back to Nina and they I

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Speaker 3: guess they live happily ever after. That's what I could

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Speaker 3: piece together reading various nazis online from the American Film

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Speaker 3: Institute Catalog's historical entry on the movie. I just wanted

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Speaker 3: to read a couple of production notes because they factor

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Speaker 3: into the Stingray or Manta Ray discussion quote. According to

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Speaker 3: the Telegraph News. The movie, with its crew of sixty

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Speaker 3: two personnel, was quote believed to be the largest motion

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 3: The article also claimed that the titular subject of the film,

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Speaker 3: the Giant Stingray, was filmed for the first time in

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Speaker 3: the sea bat.

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Speaker 2: The giant stingray. Now, I'm not sure where that would

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Speaker 2: be that there is a giant freshwater stingray, but I

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Speaker 2: think this is a creature you find in touch tanks.

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Speaker 2: This is not in captivity. I don't think this is

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Speaker 2: 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.

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Speaker 2: 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 comparable to the difference

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Speaker 3: 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 2: And even then with the sting ray, I think there's

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Speaker 2: depending on what type of stingray, you have different forms

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Speaker 2: 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. Sea Bat 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

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Speaker 3: ray but also like a 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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00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:15,919
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

361
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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,

364
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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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00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:01,159
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

375
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Speaker 3: from the main narrative to just show octopus fights or

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

377
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Speaker 3: characters forced to battle a giant manta ray that is

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

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Speaker 3: So once again you got a monster manter ray the monster.

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Speaker 3: So I looked at this part where they're battling the ray,

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Speaker 3: and it does look much more clearly like a ray. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: I think in this case that's because it is a

383
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Speaker 3: real manta ray and the film's action climax is just

384
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Speaker 3: an unsimulated harpooning of a real animal.

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Speaker 2: Oh well, that's quite unfortunate.

386
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Speaker 3: So from a distance, I'm going to give a preemptive

387
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Speaker 3: thumbs down to both of these movies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think either of these are contenders for

389
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Speaker 2: weird house cinema treatment.

390
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Speaker 3: Yeah, but it does raise this question, like because it's

391
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Speaker 3: framing them, framing rays as this monster that attacks humans

392
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Speaker 3: and you know, threatens boats and all. This was it

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

394
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Speaker 3: a kind of monster or at least a potentially dangerous animal,

395
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Speaker 3: like its cousins, the predatory sharks. And yes, I did

396
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Speaker 3: find evidence that this was just kind of common sailor's

397
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Speaker 3: lore that rays would, you know, could be dangerous, could

398
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Speaker 3: attack you, They might attack boats, they might attack divers.

399
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Speaker 3: One article I came across that was recounting some of

400
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Speaker 3: this folklore was from nineteen ten by the American biologist

401
00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 3: Theodore Gill. It's called the Story of the Devilfish. That

402
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:42,920
Speaker 3: name can be a little confusing because the term devilfish

403
00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:46,560
Speaker 3: or devil ray is still used today to refer to

404
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,639
Speaker 3: a number of species within the genus Mobula, and that

405
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Speaker 3: is the genus to which the manta rays belong. Basically,

406
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 3: manta rays are the largest couple of species within the

407
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:00,280
Speaker 3: genus Mobula, and then some of the other species within

408
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 3: the genus mobular are often called like devil rays or devilfish.

409
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Speaker 3: But the term, I think also is still sometimes used

410
00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 3: to refer to just the rays in this geno more generally,

411
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 3: so I know that's confusing. I think the lore Gil

412
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,880
Speaker 3: is talking about in this article probably does not observe

413
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Speaker 3: distinctions between devil rays and manta rays as we would

414
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Speaker 3: sort them today. It's probably just sailors are looking at

415
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 3: this thing's basically manta ray shaped. These things probably look

416
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 3: mostly the same to sailors. That's got you know, it's

417
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:31,919
Speaker 3: got the wings, and it's got something that looks like

418
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 3: horns in the front, and it's big. So that's one

419
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 3: of these devilfish or devil rays. Gil in the beginning

420
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Speaker 3: of this article attests to common associations made between what

421
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 3: he calls the great ray and devils, vampires, and bats,

422
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Speaker 3: and he mentions that common names include the sea bat

423
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 3: like in the movie. And then concerning these associations with bats,

424
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Speaker 3: he's quoting another author named Holder, and he writes, quote

425
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Speaker 3: Holder thought that quote no more diabolical creature could be imagined.

426
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 3: They resembled enormous bats, and in following one another around

427
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:12,640
Speaker 3: the circle, raised the outer tip of the long winglike

428
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:15,639
Speaker 3: fin high out of the water in a graceful curve,

429
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,919
Speaker 3: the other being deeply submerged. But then gil goes on

430
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 3: to say, quote another name for the monster ray has

431
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 3: been borrowed from the Spanish. Among the fishermen and especially

432
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Speaker 3: the pearl divers of Central America and western Mexico, it

433
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 3: is known as the manta. This is a Spanish term

434
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:36,439
Speaker 3: meaning originally blanket, and was given by the fishermen in

435
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 3: parts of Spain and the island of Mallorca to a

436
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:44,080
Speaker 3: species of the Mediterranean, and extended thence to similar fishes

437
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 3: of other regions. It has been explained that the name

438
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 3: was given by the Spaniards of America to the devilfish

439
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 3: because it was alleged to hover over and cover a

440
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 3: fisherman at the bottom as a blanket preparatory to killing

441
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 3: him for good. Indeed, that the devilfish may so attack

442
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,479
Speaker 3: a man is not only widely spread, but of an

443
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 3: ancient origin. Such an idea, however, is contrary to our

444
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 3: knowledge of the fish. Like several other of the gigantic selations,

445
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 3: its diet is in almost inverse ratio to its size.

446
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 3: So already in nineteen ten, Theodore Gill is not going

447
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 3: for the lore that the rays fold down like a

448
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 3: death blanket over the divers to cover them on the

449
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 3: bottom and prepare them for death. But I did want

450
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 3: to say I think he is sort of onto something

451
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 3: when commenting about the idea of the diet being in

452
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 3: almost inverse ratio to its size. This is not like

453
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 3: a hard and fast rule. And there are very big

454
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:47,199
Speaker 3: active predators that prey on large animals, But many of

455
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 3: the largest animals in the ocean, and the largest species

456
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:55,159
Speaker 3: within different marine lineages, are filter feeders, feeding entirely on

457
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:58,439
Speaker 3: tiny organisms and small bits of organic matter. And this

458
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:02,440
Speaker 3: is true, of course of the giant oceanic manterray. Now

459
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 3: why would that be if you have a big filter

460
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 3: feeding surface and basically like a big kind of bowl

461
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 3: shaped mouth that functions like a sieve, and a big

462
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:15,399
Speaker 3: body that can store a lot of energy for time

463
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 3: in between feeding booms. It can be an awesomely efficient

464
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 3: way to live, and with a large body yourself, you

465
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 3: don't need to worry a whole lot about predators. From

466
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 3: what I've been reading, the only real predators of the

467
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 3: giant oceanic manta rays are humans of course, and maybe

468
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,640
Speaker 3: some toothed whales like orcas, and I think sharks may

469
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 3: sometimes bite them as well, but I understand sharks are

470
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:40,640
Speaker 3: not major predators for giant mantas.

471
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll come back to this, but basically that's the case,

472
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 2: but with some variations depending on exactly where in the

473
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 2: world you are, like the actually what the surrounding environment

474
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 2: is consisting of, and you know where the mantas are living.

475
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, so in general that there are a lot of

476
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 3: upsides to being a big filter feeding organism. If you're big,

477
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 3: you don't have to worry much about predators. You don't

478
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 3: have to be all that like fast or dangerous or anything.

479
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 3: You just kind of have to like cruise around with

480
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 3: a big filter feeding surface scoop in a lot of stuff,

481
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 3: just take it all in and get huge amounts of

482
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 3: biomass going straight into your metabolism and then store a

483
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 3: lot of it for later. That's another thing that people

484
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 3: often don't think about about the advantages of having a

485
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 3: big body biologically. You know, you think, well, it's good

486
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 3: to be bigger if you're in a fight. I mean

487
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 3: sometimes that's true, yes, but it's also just like you've

488
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,360
Speaker 3: got a big freezer. Basically you can store a lot

489
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:35,640
Speaker 3: of energy in that body.

490
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:37,719
Speaker 2: But of course a big part of this is in

491
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 2: doing this as an organism, you become a specialist.

492
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 3: Right. So if you're a giant mantray and you come

493
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 3: across some divers in the water, I mean those divers

494
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 3: might be delicious, full of nutrition, but you just there's

495
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 3: nothing much you can do with them, Like, you don't

496
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 3: even have the tools really to eat that diver if

497
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:54,199
Speaker 3: you wanted to.

498
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, that ship sailed long ago. Well, one can only

499
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 2: imagine that this is based on the fact that, of

500
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 2: course they're big, and it's natural for a human being

501
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 2: in the water outside of their element to be a

502
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:10,360
Speaker 2: little spooked by large fish. I mean that's common, you kunter,

503
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 2: that's snorkeling. I feel, unless I know for certain what

504
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 2: I'm looking at, I would be a little nervous around

505
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 2: a large fish in the water. And then on top

506
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 2: of that, we have this we've already talked about how

507
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 2: there are observations of manta rays being curious concerning humans.

508
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,439
Speaker 2: Manta rays more than devil rays, I'm to understand, but

509
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 2: that would of course add to it. If you're already

510
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 2: a little nervous around a big animal and it is

511
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 2: even halfway curious about you, that might also lead to

512
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 2: this kind of conclusion.

513
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 3: Right. And while manta rays are very well known for

514
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 3: not being aggressive towards humans, I mean, it would still

515
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 3: be totally possible for one to just like injure you

516
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 3: by accident if you're getting too close. I mean they're

517
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 3: big animals, you know, yeah, and roll over, so like

518
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 3: you just you know, keep your distance.

519
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's my understanding that as far as any

520
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 2: kind of like recorded accounts of even minor injuries concerning

521
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 2: manta rays and injuries to human beings, it's involved people

522
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 2: getting too close to them, trying to ride them, and

523
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 2: so forth, which you are not supposed to do.

524
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 3: So despite their reputation as diabolical, but you know, vampire

525
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 3: bats of the sea or as some kind of underwater

526
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 3: death blanket. No giant mante rays or mante rays generally

527
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 3: devil rays as well, are generally not to be thought

528
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 3: of as a threat to humans, generally not very aggressive

529
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 3: and not anything to be all that concerned about. But

530
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 3: there is one other thing I came across in Gill's

531
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 3: article that really does paint a kind of scary picture,

532
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 3: not because of the ray doing anything threatening, but just

533
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 3: because of the sonic atmosphere it creates. And this is

534
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 3: Gil describing the experience of what it's like to be

535
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 3: around one of these giant rays jumping out of the water,

536
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 3: which they often do. So Gil writes, quote, it is

537
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 3: the great leaps out of the water that are most striking,

538
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 3: especially during the stillness of the night. Holder, on such

539
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 3: an a case on the outer Florida reef, first encountered

540
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 3: the fish, and then, quoting Holder, he says, quote, there

541
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 3: came out of the darkness near at hand, a rushing,

542
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 3: swishing noise, then a clap as of thunder, which seemed

543
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:15,239
Speaker 3: to go roaring and reverberating away over the reef like

544
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 3: the discharge of a cannon. Not hard to imagine how

545
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 3: that could engender a sense of fear about this animal.

546
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah. The authors of the Guide to Manta and

547
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 2: Devil Rays of the world, Steven said. All they mentioned

548
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 2: that if you're in the water when this happens, you

549
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 2: definitely feel it. So yeah, manta's and devils devil rays

550
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 2: all engage in leaping behavior like this, sometimes several meters

551
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 2: out of the water, and it's unknown exactly why they

552
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 2: do it, which I guess is similar to other fish

553
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 2: which we've talked about on the show in the past.

554
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 2: But the predominant theories involve either the dislodging of parasites,

555
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: and as we'll discuss and I think the next episode

556
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 2: we do on mantas, they geary a pretty large parasite load.

557
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 2: The other possibility is communication. The authors note that this

558
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 2: would mean there's much more to their social interaction than

559
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 2: is often thought. But the basic hypothesis here is that

560
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 2: these different mobilid species, especially the manta, they slap back

561
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 2: down on the surface of the water, and in doing

562
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 2: so they create a pressure wave this thunderclap that you

563
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 2: reference that could then be detected by other rays of

564
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 2: the same species miles away. Given that they're often observed

565
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 2: leaping before feeding, they could be alerting other mantas to

566
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 2: a feeding opportunity.

567
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, Okay.

568
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 2: And why would they do that, because that's a lie.

569
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 2: Would you want to tell the other rays about all

570
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 2: this great food you just found, Well, the authors point out,

571
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 2: because food is plentiful, but the opportunity itself to feed

572
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 2: is fleeting, subject to the tides and so forth. So

573
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 2: the signal might be to bring in as many fellow

574
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 2: rays as possible, to engage in group feeding strategies, which

575
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 2: we'll get into in a bit here that also increase

576
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 2: individual food. So you know, let's all do it while

577
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 2: the getting's good. Let's all feed together and we'll all feast. Ah.

578
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 3: Interesting, Okay.

579
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 2: And then on top of that, some devil rays might

580
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 2: engage in breaching as a fitness signal for mating. But

581
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 2: again that's again that's a hypothesis based on just how

582
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 2: it seems to time with other things that they're doing

583
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 2: in the water. At any rate, as we giving back

584
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 2: to human sentiments about manta rays and the idea that

585
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 2: they're vampiric death blankets and so forth, Western sentiments seem

586
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 2: to turn in a major way during the nineteen seventies

587
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 2: despite the Jaws movies, with exposure to the reality that

588
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:41,479
Speaker 2: manta rays are anything but the devilfish of a sailor's legend.

589
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 2: You know, they are the epitome of a gentle giant,

590
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: indifferent or even curious considering humans in the water, and

591
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 2: not aggressive at all. Again, I think the rare cases

592
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 2: you'll find of people being injured at all by a

593
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 2: manta are because they were intentionally trying to get way

594
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 2: too close to them as the harvesting of their gills goes.

595
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 2: Manta tourism has apparently been a major factor thus far

596
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 2: in the fight against this practice. People around the world

597
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 2: continue to spend a lot of money to observe manta

598
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: rays in the wild. In that twenty eighteen Guide to

599
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 2: the Man and Devil Rays of the World book, the

600
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 2: authors share that at the time of its publication, the

601
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 2: global estimate for direct revenue generated by manta tourism with

602
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 2: something like seventy three million annually, with associated tourism revenue

603
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 2: pushing that up to like one hundred and forty million annually.

604
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 2: So all of that basically translates to the realization that

605
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 2: if manta tourism is in the mix, a live manta

606
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 2: ray is worth far more than a dead one, and

607
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 2: so manti tourism, like a lot of marine tourism plays

608
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 2: an important role in manta conservation. At the same time,

609
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 2: of course, there's a careful balance there, right, because you

610
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 2: want people to be excited about the mantas. You want

611
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 2: people to come out and see the manta, spend money

612
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 2: on the mantas and thus helping to protect them. But

613
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 2: also you want to avoid detrimental side effects. You know

614
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 2: that can occur in a number of forms. You don't

615
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 2: want divers and snorkelers getting way too close to the animals.

616
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 2: You also don't want unsustainable practices at resorts and on

617
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 2: liver boards and so forth. You know, the ships are

618
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 2: going to take divers and snorkelers out to see these creatures.

619
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:24,799
Speaker 2: You know, you have to walk that line, and I

620
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 2: think in my understanding is that everyone involved continues to

621
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:42,280
Speaker 2: figure out exactly where that line falls. So at this point,

622
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 2: I thought we'd run through some basics about manta rays

623
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 2: and some associated devil rays to finish out this episode.

624
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 2: So mantis and devil rays belong to a group collectively

625
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 2: known as the Mobulids of the family mobili day zooming

626
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 2: out there rays of the order milio Batiforms, which contains

627
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,800
Speaker 2: twelve families, three hundred and seventy species of rays, including

628
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 2: sting rays of various species. Moboloids are most closely related

629
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 2: to eagle rays and clown nose rays of this order,

630
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 2: which are bottom feeders. They sift for mollusks and crustaceans

631
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 2: on the seabed. Moboloids, however, have adapted to pelagic filter

632
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 2: feeding in the open water, similar to the evolutionary path

633
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 2: we see with like baleen whales and whale sharks, you know,

634
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 2: as we've been discussing, like specialize in feeding on all

635
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 2: the little things in the water. Eat the cloud if

636
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: you will, Yes, So they use their mouths and modified

637
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 2: gill plates in their filter feeding. The devil ray that

638
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 2: we've been discussing, these are much smaller. There are a

639
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 2: few different varieties, with the largest I believe being the

640
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 2: Chilean devil ray or sickle fin devil ray. It has

641
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 2: a maximum disc width of eleven point two feet or

642
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 2: three hundred and forty centimeters, and it can weigh up

643
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 2: to eight hundred and eighty two or four hundred kilograms.

644
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:06,839
Speaker 2: The spinetail devil ray is also rather big. I mention

645
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:10,800
Speaker 2: it because its scientific name is mobula mobular, which is

646
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 2: always fun. And again the reef manta ray Mobula alfredi,

647
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 2: which sounds delicious but it's not on the menu, comes

648
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 2: in at a maximum disc width of fifteen feet or

649
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:24,840
Speaker 2: four hundred and fifty centimeters and a weight of fifteen

650
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 2: hundred pounds or seven hundred kilograms. But then again, the

651
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 2: oceanic manta is the biggest. That's Mobula birostras, and it

652
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 2: can reach a disc width of twenty three feet or

653
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:38,760
Speaker 2: seven hundred centimeters and a weight of up to forty

654
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 2: four hundred pounds or two thousand kilograms. They are the

655
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 2: largest of all rays, and actually, i'm to understand, the

656
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 2: fifth largest fish. Period. There's also some argument to be

657
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 2: made for a possible third species of extent manta, a

658
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 2: Caribbean manta, closely related to the oceanic manta, only smaller now.

659
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,879
Speaker 2: In addition to those gill plates, the other defining characteristics

660
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 2: of the mamboloids are their devil horns. That certainly seems

661
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 2: to lend to this idea that there's some sort of evil,

662
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 2: vampiric creature there. They're like bats, and then they have

663
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 2: devil horns. These are not horns, of course, These are

664
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 2: modified cephalic fins, So the rays use these special fins

665
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 2: to funnel plankton into their mouths during feeding. So the

666
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 2: gill plates that we were describing, these are supported by

667
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:28,719
Speaker 2: five pairs of gill arches. You can see these when

668
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 2: you see some like wide mouth photographs of these various organisms,

669
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 2: and each species both slightly different gill plate structures to

670
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 2: capture particular target prey. We were talking about the ratio

671
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 2: between the size of the organism and the size of

672
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 2: the prey. Manta rays, the biggest, have gill plates evolved

673
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 2: to capture much smaller plectonic prey compared to various devil

674
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 2: ray species for example, they're going after the real small

675
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 2: stuff they're feeding. Is really interesting though, on top of this,

676
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 2: because their bodies are you know, think of them as

677
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,879
Speaker 2: being largely flat, you know, they're kind of flattened out,

678
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 2: But as Stevens and co authors point out, during feeding quote,

679
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 2: their once flattened body and mouth becomes a giant black

680
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:15,240
Speaker 2: hole with the pectoral fins serving as wings that power

681
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 2: the ray through the water, and then the gill plates

682
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 2: do the rest. So yeah, they expand out. They become

683
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 2: this like giant gaping maw to just consume all the

684
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 2: plankton they can get, and so that's the basic strategy.

685
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 2: Open your mouth really wide, use your cephalic fins to

686
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 2: help guide the food into the mouth, and then you know,

687
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 2: go in a straight line, just go straight through the food.

688
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 2: You know, eat the cloud. But that's just one of

689
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 2: eight and possibly nine different observed feeding strategies that you

690
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 2: see in rays, with only half of those being used

691
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 2: at least observed in devil rays. So I'm going to

692
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 2: roll through these because they're they're pretty interesting. Some some

693
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 2: are only slight variations based on the other ones. But

694
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 2: so first of all, you have straight feeding. So this

695
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 2: is usually horizontal, but sometimes it's vertical and the distance

696
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 2: depends on prey frequency. So you have a cloud of plankton,

697
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 2: a big school of plankedin or something. Well, you just

698
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 2: move straight through it, eat it, eat it up, swallow

699
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 2: it up, and then you do a one hundred and

700
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:17,960
Speaker 2: eighty degree turn at the end and repeat as needed.

701
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:22,320
Speaker 2: Number two this is manta's only apparently, and it's surface feeding.

702
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 2: So this is basically straight feeding, except right at the

703
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 2: surface of the water. All right, All right, now it

704
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 2: starts getting interesting. Chain feeding. So up to several dozen

705
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 2: individuals proceeding in a line feeding.

706
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 3: Oh, it's funny that that would actually work. I would

707
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:40,879
Speaker 3: imagine the further back you are in the line, maybe

708
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,879
Speaker 3: you're not getting anything. But no, I wonder if going

709
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 3: through a head kind of creates a vortex, maybe that

710
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 3: sucks some more things in.

711
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 2: I think that that might be what's happening. And also

712
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 2: we just have to remember we're dealing with an abundance

713
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:56,760
Speaker 2: of food here and this ties in. This is exactly

714
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:59,280
Speaker 2: and this is an example of the social feeding technique

715
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:05,399
Speaker 2: group feed technique that they might hypothetically be calling other

716
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 2: mantas to engage in. Okay of next piggyback feeding. So

717
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 2: this is manta's only and it's actually only been observed

718
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:15,959
Speaker 2: in reef mantas. So you'll have a smaller manta, usually

719
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 2: a male, and it finds a larger usually female, matches

720
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 2: her pace, and it's like stacked on top of her

721
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 2: and feeds as she's feeding in a straight line. And

722
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 2: sometimes you'll get additional mantas stacked on top of that

723
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 2: until the bottom most manta swims off and displaces the

724
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 2: whole stack. All right, Here's where it gets a little fancy.

725
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 2: Summer salt feeding. So this is where they're going in

726
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 2: a straight line, and then they'll do a three hundred

727
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 2: and sixty degree loop in the water while feeding, usually

728
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 2: just one or two loops out of straight feeding, but

729
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 2: they might do several dozen continuous summer salts, depending I

730
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 2: guess on how it's going for them and with the plankton.

731
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 2: This next one, though, this is where it gets. This

732
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 2: one gets crazy cyclone feeding. What Yeah, so this is

733
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 2: a parent reef mantas only at least as far as

734
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 2: observations go. And it begins as just a line of

735
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 2: chain feeding straight feeders. But then you know, something, something changes.

736
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:14,800
Speaker 2: You know, maybe it's in just the how much planked

737
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 2: in their encountering. But the chain loops back on itself

738
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 2: to form a circle, and now we have a circle

739
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:24,760
Speaker 2: of mantas feeding. And then more mantas begin to form

740
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:28,359
Speaker 2: to join in and become part of the formation, and

741
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 2: so we end up with a counterclockwise cyclone that might

742
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 2: ultimately entail one hundred and fifty individuals and it might

743
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 2: even last up to an hour.

744
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 3: Wow.

745
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 2: And again the idea here seems to be that these

746
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 2: these group feeding scenarios when they're they're able to pull

747
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 2: them together like it actually results in a bounty for

748
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 2: everyone involved. On top of this, we have sideways feeding.

749
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:55,439
Speaker 2: This is maybe not that fancy, it's just the manta

750
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 2: ray doing you know, chain feeding or straight feeding. But

751
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:02,320
Speaker 2: on their side. Then we have bottom feeding, which I

752
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 2: guess you can think of as a return to form

753
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 2: feeding along the bottom like some of the other rays

754
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 2: that they're more distantly related to. And then a ninth

755
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 2: possible feeding technique that the authors here observe in devil

756
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 2: rays is what they call lunge feeding, and that's rapid

757
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 2: feeding acceleration into dense schools of prey. Again, this would

758
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 2: I think only be devil rays, which are going to

759
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 2: be the smaller of the species involved here. So mangoloods

760
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 2: first pop up in the fossil records some twenty eight

761
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 2: million years ago during the Middle Oligocene epoch, so according

762
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:41,399
Speaker 2: to Stevens at All, they're among the most recently evolved

763
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 2: of the elasmo Bronx. This includes all sharks and battomorphs,

764
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 2: so you know sharks, rays, and so forth, the various

765
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 2: cartilage fish swimmers of the oceans. They've evolved to of

766
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:59,320
Speaker 2: course become exceptional open water swimmers with sufficient speed bursts

767
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 2: up to a belief twenty miles per hour or thirty

768
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 2: three kilometers per hour. And this was interesting, And I

769
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 2: have trouble exactly understanding this how this works, but I

770
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 2: totally believe it. They say that they're flattened shapes apparently

771
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 2: make it more difficult for predators to bite onto them,

772
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 2: hold onto them, or certainly to target vital areas that way.

773
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, I wonder how that would work, because I

774
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 3: would imagine, you know, if you're kind of cookie shaped,

775
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 3: if you're flat, it might not be that hard to

776
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,359
Speaker 3: take a bite of you. But I wonder if doing that,

777
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 3: you're maybe able to keep your most vital parts kind

778
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,280
Speaker 3: of central, so if something does bite you, it gets

779
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 3: a less vital part of you.

780
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, like maybe you're more it's more possible that you

781
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 2: get a bite of a fin or wing, if you will. Yeah,

782
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 2: this is something they get get into in the book.

783
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 2: They do rapidly heal from serious injuries. The book displays

784
00:43:56,880 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 2: a few different rather dramatic examples via photograph of rays

785
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 2: with clear bites taken out of their fins, out of

786
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 2: their wings, and then a subsequent photo showing how those

787
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:14,240
Speaker 2: like massive bites have mostly but you know, imperfectly healed

788
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 2: at a later observation date. And I mentioned this already,

789
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:21,320
Speaker 2: but predation rates also seem to depend on particular communities

790
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 2: and environments. So, for example, the authors of this book

791
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 2: point out that mantis and Mozambique display far more evidence

792
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,479
Speaker 2: of shark attacks compared to those in the Maldives, where

793
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 2: less than fifteen percent of mantis show evidence of bites.

794
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I was specifically reading about off the

795
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 3: coast of Mozambique, where there was common evidence that mants

796
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 3: had been bitten by sharks but had survived the encounter

797
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:44,800
Speaker 3: because they grew up and the wounds healed.

798
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the healing of those wounds also involves some

799
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 2: of the cleaning fish, which we'll get back to in

800
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:55,239
Speaker 2: the next episode we do on mantas. All right, well,

801
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 2: we're going to go and close this episode of stuff

802
00:44:57,640 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 2: to blow your mind, but we're going to be back.

803
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:00,319
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be the this week.

804
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:01,840
Speaker 2: I think that's going to be next week based on

805
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,919
Speaker 2: the way the schedule's coming together. But we'll be back

806
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 2: with at least one more episode on the manta Ray.

807
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 2: If not a couple, we'll just see how it comes together.

808
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 2: Just a reminder for everyone out there, The Stuff to

809
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is a science and culture podcast with

810
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,600
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811
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820
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821
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822
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:53,759
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00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:55,560
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824
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

825
00:45:58,040 --> 00:45:59,959
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

826
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,920
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00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:11,279
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828
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:14,279
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