The short, loud clicking sounds of stingrays swimming through coral reefs off the coast of Indonesia’s Gil Islands are the first documentation of the creature that produces the sound.
A team of Swedish and Australian researchers observed the mangrove flagella “talking” as it moved the respiratory openings near its eyes, known as spiracles, in a video clip.
Sting rays, even sharks, have not been heard to produce noises, but watching the ray move away from the camera suggests that clicking may be a sign of distress or a defense mechanism
However, the team isn’t entirely sure how the sting ray makes the noise, but they suggest it could be by contracting the vents and simultaneously opening their nostrils.
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The noise of sting rays, not even sharks, was not heard, but a video clip indicates that the noise was just overlooked because the creatures are making a loud clicking sound. The image is a snapshot of the rays captured in the video
“Whether the sound is produced by rapid expulsion of water or by another internal mechanism is plausible, but remains to be seen, and more research is needed on the internal morphology of these rays,” states the study published in the journal Ecology.
The path to this landmark discovery began in 2018 when marine scientist Johnny Benny Fitzsimmons, who is leading the work, received a video of the mangroves.
They didn’t think much about it, they just simmered it for another time.
However, it wasn’t until they heard the same loud clicking from another forest in a clip shared on Instagram that the team decided to do some digging.
However, the team isn’t entirely sure how the sting ray makes the noise, but they suggest it could be by contracting the vents and simultaneously opening their nostrils.
Benny Fitzsimmons and her colleagues examined a set of stingray data to find anything like noise.
“As far as we know, it’s not something that has ever been recorded or published before,” Benny Fitzsimmons said. “I’m not quite sure why that is.”
Pini-Fitzsimmons hypothesizes that humans have previously heard the sound while diving, but because the device made its own noise, the clicking was overlooked.
Other similar species may produce sounds but anecdotal records may not have emerged yet; Thus our paper may serve to highlight other examples from the public and researchers, as stated in the study.
Stingrays are found all over the world and come in different sizes, with one caught in Cambodia and believed to be the largest freshwater fish in the world.
In June, a fisherman hung a huge stingray weighing 661 pounds and measuring 13 feet long, breaking the previous record for catfish, discovered in Thailand in 2005, which had recorded 646 pounds.
Stingrays are found all over the world and come in different sizes, with one caught in Cambodia and believed to be the largest freshwater fish in the world. In June, a fisherman hung a huge stingray, weighing 661 pounds and measuring 13 feet in length.
The stingray, nicknamed ‘burami’ or ‘full moon’ in the Khmer language, stumbles upon the Mekong River which is famous for hosting various types of big fish.
A team of scientists from the Wonders of Mekong research project helped identify, measure and weigh the beam before it was released back into the river.
‘The world’s largest fish are under threat of extinction,’ Mekong wonders leader Zep Hogan told AFP. They are a high value species. They take a long time to mature. So if they are caught before they are mature, they will not have a chance to reproduce.
Many of these large fish are migratory, so they need large areas to survive. They’ve been affected by things like habitat fragmentation from dams, obviously affected by overfishing.
“So about 70 percent of the world’s giant freshwater fish are threatened with extinction, and all of the Mekong species.”
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