SCIENCE LAB SCOOPS : GIANT MANTA RAYS

GIANT manta rays are otherworldly leviathans gliding through the world's seas on huge wings. But even though they are the largest ray species in the world, a fundamental part of their lives remains obscure ; where they give birth.

'' The big unknown for us now is where females go to pup and where these pups hang out,'' said Joshua Stewart, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University.

Now, a team of scientists in Mexico has reported the first use of underwater ultrasound scans to detect pregnancies in these animals, which may help answer that question.

An endangered species, a giant oceanic mantas are sparsely distributed and travel vast distances, making many aspects of their reproduction hard to study.

So Madalena Cabral, a marine ecologist at Mares de Mexico Giant Manta Project, led two expeditions, in Revillagigedo National Baja California in Mexico.

On dives to locate female manta rays, Dr. Cabral let each animal grow comfortable with her presence before holding an ultrasound probe near its body. She recorded the sonograms on an iPhone 15 in a waterproof housing.

It took time to learn how to interpret the resulting images.

But one night, while reviewing recent footage, Dr. Cabral realized how she was looking at a manta fetus. '' Once you see it, you can't unsee it,'' she said.

Soon, Dr. Cabral was able to recognize a pregnancy underwater while scanning a manta during a dive. 

She confirmed pregnancies in three giant mantas. The mantas were given tags so that their journeys could be tracked by satellite.

!WOW! thanks Alexa Robles-Gil.