Reef manta ray

How do you identify a reef manta ray?

The reef manta ray usually measures 3 to 3.50 meters across, and up to 5 meters for the largest. Its cousin, the oceanic manta, averages 4 to 5 meters and lives offshore. The back is dark, the belly white with black spots whose pattern is unique to each individual, so mantas can be recognized from one year to the next. Two cephalic lobes frame the mouth, which it keeps open to filter plankton. It has neither a stinger nor sharp teeth: it is harmless.

How does the reef manta ray live?

It lives near the coasts and reefs of tropical seas, where it visits cleaning stations, coral heads where small fish come to rid it of its parasites, and plankton-rich areas. It can dive deep to feed, down to 672 meters in New Caledonia. Gestation lasts 12 to 13 months for a single pup, born 1.40 meters across and weighing 9 kilos. Fast when threatened, at 24 km/h when fleeing, it has few predators. Its threat is fishing, and the species is listed as Vulnerable after a sharp drop in its populations over twenty years.

Where and when can you see reef manta rays?

In the Red Sea, manta rays turn up on the offshore reefs of the south. At Elphinstone, they glide over the plateaus from May to August. At Daedalus, they tend to come in winter and spring, from December to April. At the Brothers, they only pass through, in summer. Here, an encounter is a stroke of luck rather than a sure thing. It happens at the edge of the plateaus, in the current.

In Thailand, Koh Tachai Pinnacle is the manta site of the Andaman Sea. From December to May, mantas come to feed above the pinnacles or circle around them. At Hin Muang, they often arrive in numbers at the cleaning stations, in January and February. In Indonesia, in Raja Ampat, the season runs from December to March. At Magic Mountain, in Misool, they visit a shallow cleaning station. You watch them circle during your safety stop.

In the Pacific, Boulari Pass, in New Caledonia, has its cleaning station on a plateau at 13 meters. The mantas come all year round, mostly from January to April. In French Polynesia, they sometimes pass at the mouth of Fakarava South Pass in June and July. They come to eat the groupers' eggs. At most of these sites, peak season falls between December and April.

Is the reef manta ray dangerous?

No. The manta has no stinger, unlike stingrays, and its mouth only serves to filter plankton. It is curious and readily approaches a calm diver. The only rules are never to touch it, since the mucus that protects its skin does not recover, and not to swim toward it: get low, breathe slowly, and let it pass overhead.