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Project Noah Nature School
Manta alfredi
Manta at the cleaning station.
Tropical waters
I have never seen one like this! The farthest iv'e gotten is petting them in those little "Ray Pools"... ...Although I did catch one when I was fishing on the beach once
Beautiful!!
But CatalinIenci, one photograph a year is not enough... share some more please. : )
Hi CatalinIenci. Your spotting is featured in the new PN blog post! Cheers
http://projectnoah.tumblr.com/post/58511...
Catalin, I've created a new mission for Symbiotic relationships & would appreciate it if you could add this spotting!
http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/7987...
Oh wow, that's cool that Andrea Marshall ID'd this! Yeah, the markings were confusing, and I didn't realise the margin wasn't a defining feature. Awesome, thanks for sharing that and I'm glad it's been professionally ID'd!
PS - Laura, my thoughts were exactly the same as yours, that's why i sent Andrea the pic. The grey margin is not a defining feature of M.b, by the way, just often observed.
Hi Laura, I shall cut and paste from an e-mail from Dr Andrea Marshall:
"It is an alfredi. They can also have darkish colours around the face but if you looked on the inside of their month it would be white. This obviously does not include the black alfredi but at least for the normal colour ones it would be. Not sure why some have darker faces than others perhaps its mom was a melanistic manta! At least you know for sure now!!!"
It's Reef manta, or Manta alfredi, as described in 2009 by Dr Andrea Marshall Director and Lead Scientist - Manta Rays at the Marine Megafauna Foundation, Manta Ray & Whale Shark Research Centre
Tofo Beach, Inhambane, Mozambique.
Christopher, I think it is hard to tell from this photo if it's M. birostris or M. alfredi because it seems to have defining features of both!? While it has the spots between the gill slits that is characteristic of M. alfredi, it also has the grey margin on the edge of the wings and the dark mouth area that ID M. birostris... really quite neat! I wonder if it's some kind of hybrid, that would be interesting!
Catalinlenci, this manta has some interesting markings for a birostris, notable the black marks between its gill slits. Where off West Papua was this taken, and do you have any other images of a different angle of the same manta (i.e from overhead or front on)? If so, i'd be interested in seeing them and passing them on to some friends of mine who are manta research scientitsts.
Spotted on Mar 8, 2011
Submitted on Apr 2, 2011
