From: ken@sdc.com (Ken Marks)
Newsgroups: rec.scuba
Subject: Re: Big Stingray - Cape Cod
Date: 12 Aug 92 15:25:52 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Systems Development Corporation

In article <1992Aug10.161616.673@netnews.whoi.edu> dremsen@mbl.edu (David Remsen) writes:
>
>I have since found out that this ray is called Dasyatis centroura, the Southern
>Stingray, and it is one of the largest in the world.  I guess we get them up 
>here this time of the year. I have spoken with fishermen who get them caught 
>in their nets.  They do get big.  

The "Southern Stingray" (Dasyatis americana) is common in the Carribean 
and is less common farther North. They are usually seen by divers with a disk 
diameter of 3-4 feet (with a max somewhere around 5-1/2 feet).

>I get sort of cold when I think about the barb I saw on that guy.
>It was probably eight inches or so.  What if I had just kept right on 
>drifting over it. Yikes! 

Yes, the barb may very well have been 8 inches. What if you had just kept
right on drifting over it? Well, you probably would have just kept on
drifting over it - that is, until it got tired of listening to you 
blowing bubbles at an EXCITED rate :-) and swam on to a more peaceful
resting area. Really, the publics opinion of Stingrays (the fish not the car)
is highly overblown. The fish are very graceful and far from dangerous.
That is unless you step on one is the shallow, murky surf zone at your local
beach. A ray unable to escape attack (by a foot ill-placed on its back) will
strike by bringing its tail forward and driving its spine into the lower leg
of its would-be attacker.

At Stingray City in the North sound of Grand Cayman, I had the honor of
swimming with about 20 Southern Stingrays ranging from babies at about 
18" diameter to some large ones near 4 feet. It still ranks as one of my
more memorable dives. My biggest danger on the dive was keeping the water
out of my mask and my regulator in my mouth as I was grinning some much 
during the dive. "Like one of those kids in a puppy store where they throw
a 3 year old and a dozen puppies in a play pen and the kid is overrun with
barking, licking, tail-wagging puppies until the parents break down and
by a puppy." That is how I try to explain the feeling of playful rays coming
at you from all directions with those eyes that seem to say, "Squid? Squid?
Who has the Squid?" The most dangerous part of a Stingray (during feeding)
is its mouth. Since the eyes are on the top side and its mouth is on the
bottom side, it can never see what it is eating. Instead, like many creatures
underwater it relies on its sense of smell. The rays do not have teeth per se
but more of a bony comb line arrangemnt for gripping its food. They feed by
suction - inhaling like a Hoover. You had to take care not to let your hand
get inhaled while feeding.

I do not normally condone feeding of underwater animals - especially foreign
foods. I don't think Cheeze Whiz has a place on the food chain. (I'm not
sure it's even "food" ;-) Feeding the rays at Stingray City or Amazing Rays
seemed "less bad" since the rays had grown accustomed to taking scraps from
fishing boats which moored in the calm waters of the North sound to clean
their catch before heading to port. The rays are so used to this that they
start gathering from the sound of the engines.

In summary, I wrote this response because I would like to see less people
say "Yikes!" because they are afraid of the underwater world (thanks
Peter Benchley) and more people say "Wow!" because they have been witness
to something in our last untamed frontier - Inner Space.

-- 
Ken Marks 				 "We did not receive this earth as a 
PADI OWSI 48762       			  gift from our ancestors, but borrowed 
e-mail: ken@sdc.com  -or-		  it from out descendents."
        ...!uunet!tellab5!sdc!ken			 -African Proverb