The largest manta train we have witnessed included 20 male mantas, both young and old, chasing the female. One female manta ray swims up front, followed by several male mantas. The start of the mating ritual is fittingly called ‘manta train’. The courtship process usually first takes place around this age. The Manta Ray Mating Process: How do Mantas Court With Each Other?įemale manta rays normally take 10-15 years to become sexually mature. This article aims to answer everything you ever wanted to know about manta ray reproduction… And it includes adorable pictures of baby mantas, as well as a video describing the process from courting to manta baby (scroll down to watch it!). However, we do know mantas have a slow reproduction rate. (“If they don’t want to be near me, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Pate says.There is still a great deal that isn’t fully known about how manta rays reproduce. Some are more friendly than others one, named Nova, seems to enjoy human contact, while others swim away quickly. “When you get in the water with them, they’ll unroll and roll their fins, and if you maintain eye contact with them, they’ll study you back,” she says. She uses drones to locate the young mantas, then boats up alongside them and jumps in, toting a Go-Pro to capture pictures of the unique spot patterns on their bellies and sometimes attaching tags to gather tracking data. She suspects its existence stems from three reasons: The area has enough food that the mantas can grow, it doesn’t have too many predators, and it maintains a warm temperature that’s optimal for development.Ĭurrently, Pate is working to gather more data. “Right off the coast from the condos, among millions of people, we have this rare nursery,” Pate says.

But the most exciting thing she’s turned up is the developmental ground for baby giant mantas in an area off Fort Lauderdale and Miami. She studies giant manta rays in Florida to figure out how many there are, where they spend their time, what they eat, and how fast they mature, among many other questions. “They’re these big, charismatic creatures that remain overlooked by science,” Pate says.

They’re the biggest rays in existence and are found across the world’s oceans, from Indonesia to the Yucatan peninsula to the east coast of the United States (though Pate and other scientists suspect that the giant manta rays in Florida might be a distinct species). Manta rays have the largest brain of any fish, and they’re social and can form long-term bonds with one another.

They’re filter feeders, drawing in plankton, and have to continuously swim to keep water moving over their gills so they can breathe. They lack the venomous barb on the tail that makes stingrays dangerous. She leads the Florida project on giant manta rays, which are a mysterious, little studied, and often misunderstood species. Since female giant manta rays only produce a single, large pup every few years, and the juveniles may spend two or three years growing in these waters, it’s a vital area to protect.īased near West Palm Beach, Pate works for Marine Megafauna Foundation, a global organization that studies large marine animals, with a focus on whale sharks and manta rays. And after six years of gathering data, Pate has discovered that South Florida is home to a rare nursery of 125 juveniles. They have personalities.” The huge marine fish-its wingspan can reach more than twenty feet across-is endangered worldwide. “From that moment, I was hooked,” she says. The first time marine biologist Jessica Pate swam with a giant manta ray in 2016, it flipped upside down and swam along underneath her, studying her as much as she was studying it.

Giant manta ray size