{"id":582,"date":"2012-10-21T18:26:57","date_gmt":"2012-10-21T18:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scuba.cr\/?p=582"},"modified":"2012-10-22T16:00:44","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T16:00:44","slug":"eagle-ray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scuba.cr\/?p=582","title":{"rendered":"Eagle ray"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Eagle rays belong to the family\u00a0Myliobatidae<\/em>, a group of cartilaginous fishes which tend to swim in the ocean rather than settling on the sea bed. They have perfectly patterned body having white spots or rings against dark blue or deep-black colored bodies. The smooth white underside and respiratory spiracles, present on both sides of their beady heads help to pump water over their gills and enables them to respire. They have beak-like heads along with the wings, hence the name \u2018eagle-ray\u2019. The wings of eagle rays can span up to 10 meters in length with their sizes varying from about 48\u00a0centimetres\u00a0to thirty feet in length, with their long tails adding about an additional length of 8.4 feet. Their estimate lifespan is about twenty years, in which the eagle rays live in shallow waters, unlike other rays, from one to eighty meters of depth, swimming gracefully in schools of numbers varying from three to hundreds. Their activities are based on the \u2018tides\u2019, in a high tide they tend to mate and hunt, and on a lower tide they tend to rest in groups.<\/p>\n

Eagle rays have a very high brain-to-body weight ratio with the spotted rays being particularly intelligent. Their intricate social patterns, gorgeous colours and adaptability to the coastal environment make them a fascinating aquatic creature for the divers. Eagle rays crush their prey with their wide teeth and broad V-shaped palates with their diet including a variety of clamps, mollusks, crustaceans, oysters, shrimps and other small bony fishes. Though graceful and non-aggressive when it comes to humans, eagle rays can inflict serious injuries with their toxic tail spines.<\/p>\n

Diversity in marine life is one of the\u00a0specialities\u00a0of Costa Rica as its warm water coastal waters not only provide diving and fishing facilities to the tourists but a valuable home to the millions of marine organisms. Bordering Caribbean Sea to the East and Pacific Ocean to the West, its 1290\u00a0kilometres\u00a0coastline is home to several species of eels, rays, sharks and other aquatic organisms and thus an eye-feast for the divers and fishers who\u00a0wouldn’t\u00a0otherwise come across such extravagant a display of fish schools and aquatic communities elsewhere in a country which possesses greatest density of species in the world, marine and terrestrial.<\/p>\n

Eagle Rays are one of the most easily seen species in the coastline of Costa Rica, spotted easily by Montezuma divers as the \u2018spotted\u2019 eagle rays with their patterned, perfectly spaced, dotted and sometimes circle-patterned body standing out in the marine waters. Eagle rays inhabit both Atlantic and Pacific waters and also observed in other places such as Red Sea, South Africa, Hawaii and Australia with diverse collection from North Carolina to Brazil and from California to Peru. Found in almost all the oceans of the world, eagle rays are most commonly spotted in the Coco, Canos and Cocos Island of the west Coast of Costa Rica and the southern tip of Nicoya Peninsula, Montezuma, whose warm waters provide home to abundant collection of eagle rays as they love to cruise through the nutrient rich water of the Montezuma. This blesses the tourists with a life-time experience of natural treasure along with relaxing yoga and spa facilities.<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YKEazTE5k7w-A]<\/p>\n

References:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Myliobatidae<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Eagle rays belong to the family\u00a0Myliobatidae, a group of cartilaginous fishes which tend to swim in the ocean rather than settling on the sea bed. They have perfectly patterned body having white spots...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t