Facts about Rays

1. Rays and skates are flattened fish closely related to sharks. All belong to a group of fish called Elasmobranchs.

2. These guys are pretty unique as they have no bones in their body – their skeleton is made up of flexible cartilage (the bendy stuff that your ears and nose are made from!).

3. Although they look near identical, rays and skates are actually different. Stingrays are ovoviviparous, meaning the young are hatched from eggs that are held within the body, whereas skates are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs – these eggs are protected by a hard, rectangular case often called a “mermaid”s purse“!

4. There are many different types of ray including stingrays, electric rays, butterfly rays, round rays, manta rays, guitarfish and sawfish.

5. Stingrays use a super set of senses to search for food. Special gel-filled pits across the front of their face, (called Ampullae of Lorenzini), allow them to pick up electrical signals from other animals when they move – cool! Their eyes are on the topside of their body and their mouth and gills can be found underneath, so in the darker depths or murky rivers this electromagnetic sense is especially useful for searching for prey.