Tuesday 2 August 2022 08:54 PM Hear the FIRST sounds of a stingray ever documented trends now
Short, loud clicking noises released by a stingray as it swam through a reef off the coast of Indonesia's Gill Islands is the first instance documentation of the creature producing sound.
A team of Swedish and Australian researchers observed a mangrove whipray 'talking' as it moved the respiratory openings near its eyes, known as spiracles, in a video.
Noise production of sting rays, and even sharks, is unheard of, but watching the ray move away from the camera suggests the clicking could be a sign of distress or a defense mechanism
The team, however, is not completely sure how the sting ray makes the noise, but they propose it could be by contracting the spiracles and opening its gills simultaneously.
Scroll down for videos
" class="c5" scrolling="no"
Noise production of sting rays, and even sharks, is unheard, but a video suggests that the noises have just been overlooked because the creatures making a loud clicking sound. Pictured is a snapshot of the ray that was captured in the video
'Whether the sound production is achieved through fast expulsion of water or another internal mechanism is plausible, but remains to be seen, and further research on the internal morphology of these rays is required,' reads the study published in the journal Ecology.
The path to this historic discovery started in 2018 when marine scientist Joni Pini-Fitzsimmons, who is leading the work, received a video of the mangrove.
Not thinking too much of it, they put it on the backburner for another time.
However, it wasn't until they heard the same loud clicking from another mangrove in a clip shared on Instagram did the team decide to do
