Topic

You remember that family game you used to play when going on long road trips 'What's That Roadkill?' No? Maybe it was just us then...

Well in the spirit of that game I will award 10 points to the first to identify the following...


Fingers and toes





crossed the pictures appear xxxx

Wild guess, Sea scorpion... was!

Thornback Ray

Looks like a badly decomposed Monkfish?

Brian.

Well done David A, that was clearly too easy for you!

It wasn't so much decomposed as totally stripped. Dinner had been had.

Beth,
as a long time Scuba Diver, a student of Marine Biology, and a retired member of the water industry, all things fishy have a strong attraction for me!

That explains a lot! I always new there was something 'Ichthyological' about you David

A slightly bigger ray from my last foray. (Manta Ray)

Vicious looking beastie! Not the manta ray the thornback. David sneaked in with his update before I posted.

Where do you find those then?

Thornbacks are pretty widespread around this part of the world and you will find them off our shores.

Wiki says

The thornback ray (Raja clavata) or thornback skate is a species of fish in the Rajidae family. It is found in coastal waters of Europe and the Atlantic coast of Africa, possibly as far south as Namibia and even South Africa. Its natural habitats are open seas and shallow seas. It is sometimes seen trapped in large estuarine pools at low tide.

David I am sooooo jealous, one of my dreams is to swim with a manta ray, I think the manta Ray is such a beautiful creature. It always turns my stomach when I see Ray wings for sale in the fishmongers.

They are amazing animals, huge but gentle plankton feeders. This one (above) was a juvenile at about 2.5 metres wingspan.

The best area to see them is Indonesia, especially in the Komodo Marine Park, between Flores and Sumbawa.
There is a resident population of juveniles and younger adults all year round but also the big adults come to the area to feed and breed and the best place to see them close up is one of the many "cleaning stations" on the reefs. This is where the Mantas hover to allow a myriad of smaller fish to pick off their annoying parasites and clean any wounds.

I have a lot of photos and u/w video of Mantas from my last trip there earlier this year.

edit: Incidentally, Indonesia has recently declared them a protected species and outlawed their capture in all their waters.