When traveling in deep water, the giant oceanic manta ray swims steadily in a straight line, while further inshore it usually basks or swims idly around. birostris at cleaning station ( Ko Hin Daeng, Thailand) The oceanic manta ray is often found in association with offshore oceanic islands. It is an ocean-going species and spends most of its life far from land, travelling with the currents and migrating to areas where upwellings of nutrient-rich water increase the availability of zooplankton. In the Southern Hemisphere, it occurs as far south as Peru, Uruguay, South Africa, and New Zealand. In the Northern Hemisphere, it has been recorded as far north as southern California and New Jersey in the United States, Aomori Prefecture in Japan, the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, and the Azores in the northern Atlantic. The giant oceanic manta ray has a widespread distribution in tropical and temperate waters worldwide. Its cephalic fins, inside of its mouth and its gill slits are often black. The oceanic manta ray has also a white ventral coloration with spots clustered around lower region of its abdomen.
The line of separation between these two white areas form meanwhile a "T".ĭifference can also be made by their ventral coloration, the reef manta ray has a white belly with often spots between the branchial gill slits and other spots spread across trailing edge of pectoral fins and abdominal region. While for the oceanic manta ray, the dorsal surface is deep dark and the two white areas are well marked without gradient effect. The reef manta ray has a dark dorsal side with usually two lighter areas on top of the head, looking like a nuanced gradient of its dark dominating back coloration and whitish to greyish, the longitudinal separation between these two lighter areas forms a kind of "Y". Only the colour pattern remains an effective way to distinguish them. However, if the observed rays are young, their size can easily bring confusion. The oceanic manta ray is larger than the reef manta ray, 4 to 5 metres in average against 3 to 3.5 metres. Physical distinctions between oceanic manta ray and reef manta ray įront of a reef manta ray (i) Mobula alfredi) with closed mouth, Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia. However, there are distinguishing features. Mobula birostris is similar in appearance to Mobula alfredi and the two species may be confused as their distribution overlaps. The markings can often be used to recognise individual fish. The ventral surface is white, sometimes with dark spots and blotches. The colouring of the dorsal (upper) surface is black, dark brown, or steely blue, sometimes with a few pale spots and usually with a pale edge.
#OCEANIC MANTA SKIN#
The skin is smooth with a scattering of conical and ridge-shaped tubercles. The manta ray does not have a spiny tail as do the closely related devil rays ( Mobula spp.) but has a knob-like bulge at the base of its tail. It has a small dorsal fin and the tail is long and whip-like. The eyes and the spiracles are on the side of the head behind the cephalic fins, and the gill slits are on the ventral (under) surface.
The teeth are in a band of 18 rows and are restricted to the central part of the lower jaw. These can be rolled up in a spiral for swimming or can be flared out to channel water into the large, forward-pointing, rectangular mouth when the animal is feeding. It is dorsoventrally flattened and has large, triangular pectoral fins on either side of the disc.Īt the front, it has a pair of cephalic fins which are forward extensions of the pectoral fins. The giant oceanic manta ray can grow up to 9 m (30 ft) in maximum length and to a disc size of 7 m (23 ft) across with a weight of about 3,000 kg (6,600 lb) but average size commonly observed is 4.5 m (15 ft). birostris with unfolded cephalic fins ( Ko Hin Daeng, Thailand)
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