Have a look at these incredible schools of mobula rays off the coast of Baja, Californias. Their reasoning behind breaching out of the water remain unknown – however it looks like a lot of fun!
Their breaches can reach up to 6 feet in heights and it is an incredible sight. Their landing however, is not quite as graceful as they bellyflop loudly back into the ocean. Sitting in a boat in the midst of these aggregations is akin to sitting in a pot of popcorn as the kernels explode into the air. Everywhere you look mobulas are leaping out of the water and landing with a loud smack, sometimes just a couple of meters from you,” says Joshua Stewart, from the Gulf of California Marine Program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who studies rays in Mexico and across the world.As far as we can tell, all mobulid rays jump, as do their myliobatid (eagle rays) cousins. A myriad of theories have been suggested as to the reason behind their ‘flying’, including everything from feeding, courting, communicating, and ridding themselves of parasites. Other than this, we know very little information about these incredible creatures other than that they are filter feeder, eating large quantities of plankton, and that they migrate ocean the open ocean.
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