montereybayaquarium:

May your Monday be motivated like these baby sting rays attempting to scale their window

*your Monday, whatever it may be

For anyone curious, this is a very common behavior among stingrays in aquariums. Stingrays normally flutter along the bottom of the water, and they rarely, if ever, encounter steep walls. When it finds the side of the tank, a stingray in an aquarium simply keeps going as though the tank wall is the bottom of the tank. This is why you see rays in touch tanks coming up to the surface and sticking out a little bit- they’re programmed for “swim along solid surface”. It’s not going to do them any harm, it’s not stressful, it’s just what they do.

In other words, these lil guys, who do not have swim bladders to keep them still in the water, are probably pretty confused as to why they keep sliding along the ground. They can’t just hover in place like most fish do.

Biofluorescent Marine Animals

dynamicoceans:

Animals may use florescence for may different reasons.

This bream may use it’s fluorescence to camouflage itself among coral, as it is just as intense as the coral behind it.

The lined seahorse may use it for camouflage or for their elaborate mating rituals.

In sharks it may be used to distinguish between male and female sharks.

The video for this is pretty neat, if you have about 15 minutes of spare time, I highly recommend watching it.

video

anguishapotheosized:

potamotrygonbio:

Now that’s what I call a short stack! 🥞Smaller rays often love climbing on top of larger ones, even attempting to ride them! Bisquick doesn’t seem to mind too much fortunately. As always I do have to remind everyone that freshwater stingrays are venomous animals that grow to very large sizes and should not be kept by the average hobbyist.

Wonderful Friends Experiencing True Joy of Pile

Source: potamotrygonbio

sexymonstersupercreep:

This is actually a lot safer than it looks!

Rays have crushing plates in their mouths, but no significant gripping power, so they can’t grab a hand and pull it. You have to sit still and let them get your fingers into their mouth for them to actually put the plates to work. Also, the sharp bits are on the other end, and they only sting when threatened. Clearly, this ray does not feel threatened.

Rays also tame pretty easily when offered food, as seen above.