Short, high-pitched clicking sounds are emitted by stingrays swimming on reefs near the seashore. IndonesiaThe Gill Islands are the first documented specimen of a vocalizing creature.
In a video, a team of Swedish and Australian researchers observed a mangrove whip “talking” while moving its airways near its eyes.
The noise production of stingrays or even sharks is inaudible, but watching the ray move away from the camera suggests that the clicking may be a sign of distress or a defense mechanism.
However, the team isn’t exactly sure how the sting ray makes the noise, but they suggest it could be by the coils contracting and opening their gills at the same time.
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The noise production of stingrays and even sharks is inaudible, but a video shows that the noises are simply ignored as the creatures make a loud clicking sound. Pictured is a photo of the beam captured in the video
“Whether sound production is achieved through rapid water ejection or some other internal mechanism is plausible, but remains to be seen, and further research into the internal morphology of these rays is required,” says the study, published in the journal Ecology.
The path to this historic discovery began in 2018 when marine scientist Joni Pini-Fitzsimmons, who led the work, received a video of the mangrove.
Without thinking too much, they put it on the back burner for another time.
However, it wasn’t until they heard the same loud clicking sound from another mangrove in a clip shared on Instagram that the team decided to do some digging.
However, the team isn’t exactly sure how the sting ray makes the noise, but they suggest it could be by the spiracles constricting and the gills opening at the same time.
Pini-Fitzsimmons and her colleagues sifted through the sting ray data to find anything resembling noise.
“To our knowledge, this is not something that has been written or published before,” Pini-Fitzsimmons said. “I’m not entirely sure why that would be.”
Pini-Fitzsimmons hypothesizes that people may have heard the sound while snorkeling before, but the click went unnoticed because the equipment made its own noise.
‘Other similar species may also produce sounds, but anecdotal memories may not yet emerge; Thus, our paper may serve to elicit more patterns from the public and researchers,” the study says.
Stingrays are found all over the world and come in different sizes, one of which is caught in Cambodia and is considered the largest freshwater fish in the world.
In June, a fisherman caught a giant stingray that weighed 661 pounds and was 13 feet long, breaking the previous record for a catfish that was caught in Thailand in 2005 and weighed 646 pounds.
Stingrays are found all over the world and come in different sizes, one of which is caught in Cambodia and is considered the largest freshwater fish in the world. In June, an angler caught a giant stingray that weighed 661 pounds and was 13 feet long.
Nicknamed “Borami” or “full moon” in Khmer, the stingray was caught in the Mekong River, which is famous for hosting a variety of large fish.
A team of scientists from the Mekong Wonders research project helped mark, measure and photograph the ray before it was released back into the river.
The wonders of the Mekong, Zeb Hogan, told AFP: “Globally, big fish are in danger. They are high value species. They take a long time to mature. So if they are hunted before they mature, they have no chance to reproduce.
Many of these large fish migrate, so they need large areas to live. They are affected by things like habitat fragmentation from dams affected by overfishing.
“Thus, approximately 70 percent of giant freshwater fish globally and all Mekong species are threatened with extinction.”
