Stingrays appear to glide silently through the oceans, but a group of researchers in Australia have found that rays can make sounds, especially when under duress.
What to know:
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Social media recordings of stingrays making sounds have now dispelled the long-held assumption that rays were incapable of making noise.
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The sounds made by the rays have been described as a series of short but loud clicking sounds.
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It appears that the rays only make the sounds when under duress.
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Few people have ever heard the sounds because scuba equipment produces noise with its bubbles that tends to overwhelm other sounds produced underwater.
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Investigations of the sound production in rays are now underway. Researchers are seeking to understand how they make the sounds and how the sounds are used.
This is a summary of the article, “Evidence of Sound Production in Wild Stingrays,” published by the Ecological Society of America on July 8, 2022. The full article can be found on esa journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
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