Giant manta ray is tagged for first time

Queen of the Mantas hopes research can help save ocean giant

July 2010: Dr Andrea Marshall - known as Queen of the Mantas from the BBC's 2009 documentary film - has attached a satellite tag to a giant four metre manta ray off the coast of South America.

GENTLE GIANT: The giant manta ray with the tag clearly visible. Its movements can now be tracked. Picture: Dr Andrea Marshall / SOSF

It is the first manta ray in the Southern Atlantic to be satellite tagged. The tagging is a fundamental part of a comparative worldwide research campaign called Ray of Hope' funded by the Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF) and conducted by the Marine Megafauna Foundation (MMF), which is investigating the behaviour and movement patterns of the newly-described giant manta ray.

‘This achievement is a piece of manta research history,' says Andrea, ‘but more than that it is the start of my collaborative work in South America on this species which is currently the only research being conducted on manta rays in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is an important step in trying to understand how this species uses the coastline of Brazil, if it travels distances offshore, where their seasonal movements take them and what threats they face on their journeys.'

Almost nothing is known about manta rays in South America

QUEEN OF THE MANTAS: Dr Andrea Marshall

The tag was deployed last week on a large mature male at Laje de Santos, the largest documented aggregation site for the Manta birostris species in the Southern Atlantic Ocean, and is programmed to stay on the manta ray for 180 days. For the next six months the tag will accompany the manta on its journey through the oceans, functioning like a mini-lab and storing data critical to the investigation. As well as recording the water temperature through which the manta swims and the depths the animal reaches, it also records the light levels and its GPS position every time it breaks the surface, information used in determining the individual's actual track.

Almost nothing is known about the lives of manta rays in South America and Andrea hopes the study will help answer a series of questions aimed at providing invaluable information for managing the region's manta ray population and better protecting them from fishing pressure and other human induced threats such as shipping traffic.

FACT FILE: Giants of the ocean

• The manta rays can weigh over 2,000 kg and their large, triangular pectoral fins can span almost 8m wide.
• Manta rays are totally harmless and do not possess a stinging barb. They are the largest of more than 500 different species of rays and skates.
• Previously thought to be just one species, it was Dr Andrea Marshall who suspected the existences of a second manta ray species. Through genetic and morphological analysis she has confirmed that there is indeed a second, and possibly a third, species of manta ray that exists across temperate, tropical and subtropical waters worldwide.
• The smaller, more commonly known manta ray resides in the same areas year round and is often encountered at coral reefs where they congregate to be cleaned by parasite-eating fish in locations such as Hawaii, the Maldives, Mozambique, Australia, Japan and the Island of Yap. Due to their residential nature they face a grave threat from unsustainable fisheries, as other manta rays will not replace a dwindling population, making their regional extinction a likely possibility.
• Far less is known about the larger species, as it appears to be more migratory and elusive, shying away from divers rather than seeking interaction as its smaller cousin often does. Little is known about its behaviour or migratory patterns, though it appears to be targetted heavily by fisheries, particularly in Southeast Asia, where thousands are killed each year.