Stingrays Scramble Squares
Stingrays are graceful swimmers, quietly gliding through the water like the stealth bombers of the sea. These flattened-out fish are closely related to sharks, but stingrays protect themselves from predators with a sharp barbed stinger on the top of their tail where it meets their body. The stinger is venomous, like a scorpionÂ’s tail, and the barb can cause more tissue damage when pulled out than when stuck in. Not all members of the ray family are stingrays. Others, such as the giant manta, can grow to enormous proportions but are completely harmless to man. Except for biologists and people who spend an unusually great amount of time in the sea, stingrays are often difficult to distinguish from the species of rays without stinging barbs. The occasional angler and coastal visitor should approach any ray with great respect and caution.
Stingrays, like sharks, belong to the animal class Chondrichthyes, one of the three major groups of fishes. Like all fish, a stingray has a spinal cord, but Chondrichthyans are different from other fish types because they have jaws, skeletons composed of cartilage, rather than of bone, and, in males only, a unique set of appendages called claspers between their pelvic fins. Sharks and rays belong to the subclass Elasmobranchii, which is divided into eight orders of sharks and one order of rays. The ray is closely related to the flat-bodied angel sharks and saw sharks. In general a ray is a flat bodied shark with expanded pectoral (side) fins that attach to the head forward of its gill slits. The gill slits are on the underside of the ray, rather than on the sides of its head, and the ray swims by flapping its pectoral fins like wings, rather than by by swinging its tail, like a shark and other fish. All rays, like sharks, are carnivores, or meat eaters. Rays dig into the mud for crabs, shrimp, clams, fish, and worms to eat. The stingray’s mouth is conveniently located on its underside, enabling it to “vacuum” up their food as it glides over it. When a stingray eats a clam, it sucks up the clam whole, crushes it up with its powerful jaws, and then spits out the shell fragments.
Stingrays may live alone, in pairs, or even small groups, but whether there are other stingrays around or not, a stingray is never really alone! Fish follow stingrays because as stingrays skim along the ocean bottom, their flapping fins stir up a feast enough for everyone. Like most sharks, stingrays give birth to live young! Infant stingrays are born 3 to 5 in a litter, and are well cared for by their mothers. Stingrays regularly visit “cleaning stations,” places where fish called bluehead wrasses and Spanish hogfish and other reef fishes are abundant. All of these fish love to eat the parasites on a stingrays skin and ingest the stingray's body mucus. It's a great way for these fish to feed and for the stingray to get a thorough cleaning.
Like flounder, rays are often well camouflaged near grass, mud, or sandy bottoms. They not only change their colors to conceal themselves, but they can also cover themselves with sand or mud while lying perfectly still on the bottom.
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