Scientists recently teamed up with a dive operator community serving the Komodo National Park to source identification images of manta rays that visit the park's waters and submit them to a crowdsourced online database called MantaMatcher.org for manta, as well as other rays.

As indicated in a EurekAlert! report, through a collaborative initiative that includes the public, researchers from the Marine Megafauna Foundation and Murdoch University are reporting a huge number of manta rays in the waters of an Indonesian UNESCO World Heritage Site, Komodo National Park, proposing that the site might hold the key to the regional recovery of the endangered species.

 

Essentially, reef mantas, also known as Mobula alfredi, which grow up to five meters, are inclined to reside and feed in superficial, "coastal habitats."

They also visited cleaning stations on coral reefs to have parasites, and dead skin picked off by tiny fish. Courtship trains are observed as well, adjoining cleaning stations.

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: Manta Ray
(Photo: LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images)
Manta ray swims in a pool of the Grand Aquarium in Saint-Malo, western France.


Manta Rays Exist All Year Round

 In Komo National Park, manta rays exist all year round, challenging the popular Komodo dragon as the most sought-after megafauna for visitors.

Most of the images came from only four sites from more than 20 frequently visited by tourism boats. According to Dr. Elitza Germanov, lead author of the study published in the Peer journal,  she was amazed by how open-minded the local dive community was in terms of helping with the collection of much-needed data on the said threatened animals.

She added that the group was able to identify more than 1,000 individual manta rays from more than 4,000 images with their support.

Principal scientist and the Marine Megafauna Foundation's co-founder, Dr. Andrea Marshall, explained that individual manta rays are identified by their distinctive and, at times, striking abdominal patterns.

Collection of Endangered and Understudied Marine Creatures

Marshall saw the possibility of engaging the public with data collection for such threatened and understudied marine creatures and worked with WildMe, a software company, to develop an online wildlife database platform called MantaMatcher.org to match and catalog manta rays in different populations globally.

The images and the accompanying time and location information are then utilized to construct sighting backgrounds of individual manta rays, which can be examined with statistical movement prototypes.

Such models can forecast the probability that manta rays are inhabiting or traveling in-between specific areas. Results of the study revealed that some manta rays are moving around the park and others as far as the Nusa Penida MPA, although in general, manta rays exhibited individual preferences for particular sites within the Park.

According to Dr. Germanov, she found it very interesting how some manta rays seem to prefer spending time in some areas more than others, even when sites have a five-kilometer distance, which are short spaces for manta rays.

She added that manta rays preferring sites where fishing activities continue to happen or that is more famous for tourism will survive greater effects.

Activity Adversely Affecting Manta Rays

Komodo National Park's popularity for tourism grew thoughtful to the research, leading to a 34-increase in tourism boats visiting manta ray sites.

Moreover, a rise in boating activity and excessive divers and snorkeling activity can adversely affect manta rays and their habitats.

In 2019, the Komodo National Park Authority introduced boundaries on the number of people and boats that visit one of the most popular manta sites.

This study reveals that the sites where tourists typically observe manta rays are essential for the animals to feed and clean, not to mention mate.

A report about the manta rays in Komodo National Park is shown on PeerJ's YouTube video below:

 

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