Manta Ray Essay

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Today I went to the New England Aquarium for an amazing lecture: Protecting the Ocean’s Giants: The Future of Manta Ray Conservation. Our lecturer was Joshua Stewart. He introduced what is a manta ray, what is wrong with Manta Ray, and why should we protect them, and so on. After his fantastic presentation, I had a better understanding of the marine animal Manta Ray. Every time when I see or hear the word “ray”, I am thinking of stingray, which has poisonous stings on their tails. I don’t like stingrays because they can kill people. In fact, manta rays are quite different than stingrays. Manta ray is a marine animal and there are two manta ray species. Manta rays are very similar to mobula rays, which has 9 species. Manta ray is a huge animal. Its width can reach over 5 meters. Their size looks terrifying but they are actually very nice animal. When people swim with manta rays, they usually interact with people and play with people. This is because manta rays have very high intelligence. The brain to body mass ratio of manta ray is between mammals and bony fishes. Manta rays live in the tropical and subtropical area. Some manta rays live in a particular location while others travel from places to places. Manta rays are filter feeders. They consume a large quantity of zooplankton by filter seawater through their mouths while swimming. And usually many manta rays swim in lines with their mouths open to filter more zooplankton. Manta rays are huge in size so only sharks and killer whales can harm them and eat them. However, many manta rays survived from the attack of sharks or whales. It is amazing that manta can heal the wound of shark’s bite and after a few years their broken fins can eventually grow back. However, the population of manta ray is declining. According to some statistic, the catch of manta ray has increased in Indonesia since 2005. The number of

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