7 Facts About Manta Rays You Don’t Want To Miss
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Welcome to the wonderful world of manta rays. Below are 7 manta facts that you probably never knew!
1. If you asked a manta what its favorite number, it would probably say 25.
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And thats because the largest manta rays can grow to have a wingspan of 25 feet and the oldest rays live to be 25 years old. If we were rays we would be shooting for 25 too!
2. They can eat without putting forward any effort.
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You see, all they have to do is open that enormous mouth they have and keep on swimming. On average a manta ray will consume about 60 pounds of small fish and plankton everyday simply by filter feeding!
3. Manta ray mamas will give birth to one or two pups every other year.
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Most people think that the mother lays an egg and then the baby hatches, however, manta ray babies are alive and kicking when their moms give birth.
4. They love the car wash just as much as you!
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They want a clean bod without having to put in the muscle work. No problem! Mantas regularly visit cleaning stations at the reefs where certain species of fish eat parasites from the their bodies as they swim by.
5. Manta rays have ‘ups’!
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Scientists are unsure of why exactly these rays love projecting themselves out of the sea but there are many thoughts on this subject. The speculations- 1) impress potential mates, 2) evade predators, 3) control the amount of parasites attached to them, or 4) because they just like to.
We like to think its for fun!
6. People used to think they were the devil!
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Well, people may not have thought they were the devil but due to the lobes attached to their head appearing similar to devil horns people used to refer to these angelic creatures as devil rays.
7. They have 300 rows of teeth that they’ll never eat with!
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Now, we know that you can’t see them and that’s because they are located under several layers of skin in their lower jaws. Pretty pointless right? Well, no actually as scientists now believe the male mantas may use their teeth when courting a mate.
