Some very exciting news from Bahamas-based Manta Ray Cognition project leader Csilla Ari – it appears that newly-introduced manta at the Atlantis Aquarium may be of a previously-undescribed species! As she writes on her blog:
After watching the two huge manta rays while snorkeling with them for hours I realized that I am part of something even more exciting than just swimming together with two manta rays….I noticed that she was different than the manta rays I met and studied before… I have worked on Manta alfredi in the Maldives and Manta birostris in Ecuador, but she rather looked like the mix of these two species…
In an unlucky turn of events, just after making this discovery Csilla was hospitalized with dengue fever and has only recently been able to return to her observations at the aquarium. Hopefully we’ll have more news about this exciting development to share soon.