Giant Oceanic Manta Facts

Giant Oceanic Manta Profile

NASA alone was granted a $33bn budget for the year 2023, a lot of which was dedicated to exploring space to find, among other things, any hint of companionship for our species. Meanwhile, there are giants in the oceans who talk to one another with vocal languages more complex than our own, live in large social groups and are naturally kind, welcoming, and inquisitive. 

At the Our Ocean Conference in Panama, the United States highlighted new and recently launched global initiatives totalling a relatively meagre $800 million to protect our ocean and assist developing countries. This discrepancy can’t help but make you think we’re looking in the wrong direction.

While being reliably rejected by the inhospitable and barren nature of outer space, we’re not only ignoring but actively wiping out the open fins of some potential besties in the ocean. Friends like the Giant oceanic manta ray, for example. 

Giant Oceanic Manta Facts Overview

Giant mantas might be the friendliest animals in the ocean. They spend much of their lives socialising and bringing valuable poop from the outer reaches into the shallow and bustling reef. They’re immensely intelligent, naturally curious, and apparently loved by almost everyone in the ocean. So, of course, they’re endangered due to humanity’s total disregard for wildlife. 

Interesting Giant Oceanic Manta Facts

1. Flat sharks

Rays are part of the class Chondrichthyes, which contains the cartilaginous fishes. Sharks and rays both fall into this category as they don’t have bony skeletons. This makes manta rays quite a lot closer to sharks than other flat fish with bones, such as the flounder. 

But the name manta is a bit misleading for now. Once thought to be a part of the Manta genus, the giant oceanic manta has been shifted to a different grouping, and is now part of the genus Mobula. This is still in the same family of flattened, flappy, cartilaginous fishes, but is a slightly different lineage. 

But the convolution of their family ties doesn’t end there. Genetic analysis has now suggested they were right to be in the same genus as the Manta rays all along, and so the latter will probably end up joining the genus Mobula once people stop rolling their eyes about it. 

2. They have a vestigial spine

But not in the way you might think. 

The stingray is the most powerful animal on the planet, as evidenced by it being the only creature in the kingdom to best humanity’s champion, Steve Irwin. 

Stingrays, as we’re all now tragically aware, have a hardened spine at the base of their tail, and this is used to great effect as a defensive barb against predators. 

This barb is present in other species but has more or less faded out in manta rays, atrophying as appendages always will, through lack of use. What remains is a useless nub; a remnant of a once-terrifying weapon. 

3. They can do well without it

This means the giant manta has other tricks up its sleeve, and one of these tricks is its speed. Giant mantas are a lot faster than you’d expect from such a heavy, relaxed animal. This helps them escape predation in a lot of cases, but when they get away with injuries, they also have exceptional regeneration. 

Some populations are more at risk than others when it comes to having a chunk bitten out of them. For example, in the Maldives, they’re relatively unbothered by sharks, but in Mozambique, around 70% have battle scars from close encounters. 

In both of these locations, an injured manta ray will spend significantly more time visiting a cleaning station to have its wound/s cleaned.

When injured, mantas make use of any one of many cleaning stations to get their wounds dressed. 

4. They make use of cleaning stations

Mantas, a lot like turtles, will stop off at specific sites to make use of various marine services. These services are provided by the local residents, who welcome visitors by rushing out to clean them of parasites and other detritus. 

Cleaning stations are an important part of personal hygiene for large marine mammals, and the workers get a free meal in exchange for their labour. ¹

5. They’re huge

Within the elasmobranchs, giants have evolved a few times. The infamous Megalodon was one good example, but there are current versions like the whale shark that keep the fire alive. Giant mantas are truly immense. They can weigh around a ton and reach nine meters across. 

What’s interesting that in cartilaginous giants, the adaptations of filter feeding and mesothermy (the intermediate between cold-blooded and warm-blooded) are common among the giants, but they appear to only have one or the other. Mantas, obviously, picked the filer-feeding route. 

This is a sort of evolutionary clue as to the reason why animals get so big, and why this is, has been the focus of some research. 

It seems that both filter-feeders and mesotherms have both found their unique evolutionary paths to grow into marine giants and that one strategy or the other is necessary to maintain life as a giant. 

Gigantism is still not well understood but it comes with some key advantages in the water. First, it takes longer for a giant to get cold, and second, it’s a great way to avoid being eaten. But it’s also a risky strategy, meaning that giant animals are more susceptible to extinction than smaller ones. ²

6. They’re intelligent

Along with their enormous body mass, they’ve evolved enormous brains, too. The brain of the giant manta ray is the largest in any fish and comes with specialist areas for problem solving and communication. 

This is what gives them such a curiosity and apparently social attitude towards divers. These enormous fappy creatures are playful and inquisitive among strangers. 

They’ve also passed the mirror test, and in captivity will make funny faces and check themselves out when given access to a mirror.  

7. They can be social

Mantas are often alone but will also be commonly found in pairs or groups, sometimes of up to 50. They appear to be social with other species, too, including birds and mammals. Mantas are also used as public transport by various animals who appear to hitch a lift without complaints from the driver.

A group of mantas is called a squadron, and it suits them; they fly through the water with elegance, collecting planktonic food, and sometimes small fish. Groups of mantas sometimes work together to herd their food into bigger bites, and the majority of their food comes not from the shallows, but from deeper waters. 

Some of the largest groups of mantas known occur in Ecuador. Perhaps the largest population in the ocean lives here, with up to 22,000 rays. ³

8. They’re nutrient recyclers

These many giants are necessarily going to impact the ecosystem, and giant mantas are important nutrient recyclers, bringing those organic molecules from the deep, up into the reef. 

A manta with a belly full of pelagic fish and plankton will dump that fertiliser around their local reef resting point, transferring the nutrients to their local habitat where they spend most of their time. ⁴

9. Microplastics are a problem

One of the most effective ways of ridding the oceans of happens to be very similar to the way animals like mantas feed. As such, they’re prone to swallowing more microplastics than most other animals in the oceans. 

Microplastics appear to pass mostly through the manta unaltered, but it’s unknown whether the accumulated toxins that the plastics absorb may have any effect, and the residents of the reef that the mantas are bringing the plastics to, may not be as fortunate. 

10. Overfishing and bycatch are worse

Mantas are hunted deliberately for their meat and other products, but they’re so often caught as by-catch that the global, industrial fishing industry remains the biggest threat. 

As large, slow-growing animals, they don’t recover quickly, and the species as a whole is now endangered. Without dramatic adjustments to our consumption, we are liable to lose the very thing we’re looking for before we even realise it exists. ⁵

Giant Oceanic Manta Fact-File Summary

Scientific Classification

1. THE DEPARTURES CHANNEL (2017), “DESCENDING 4K | S1 E12 | The Giant Manta Rays”, YouTube.
2. Catalina Pimiento (2019), “Evolutionary pathways toward gigantism in sharks and rays”, EVOLUTION.
3. (2017), “SEA WONDER: MANTA RAY”, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.
4. Lauren De Vos, “Manta rays”, World of Sharks.
5. “United States Announces $800 Million in International Commitments for Protecting Our Ocean”, U.S Department of State.