Spotted Eagle Ray - Marine life in El Nido
Even if it’s not really common to see them in Bacuit Bay, it’s one of our favorite underwater creature. Beautiful, gracious and classy, the eagle ray is always a great pleasure to watch.
Marine life in El Nido - Eagle Ray - An Extraordinary Sea Creature.
Marine life in El Nido – Eagle ray is the most outstanding Marine life in El Nido. When compared to other members of the same family, these species are contrastingly tranquil creatures. It is easily recognized by its coloration. It is usually black or bluish, with a lot of small and white spots. To feed it probes the sand with its snout to locate food items (clams, oysters, snails, worms, shrimp, octopus, squid, sea urchins and bony fishes).
Genus: Aetobatus
Depth: 1 to 80m
Diet: carnivore
Size: 5 meters in length; wingspan of up to 3 meters; 230 kilograms
Lifespan: 15-20 years
Eagle Ray - Where to find them?
This large ray is distributed throughout the tropical zones of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. It migrates seasonally outside these areas with the summertime warming of the waters. Large shoals, sometimes numbering hundreds of specimens have been seen . If you are lucky you can spot these amazing creatures passing by on one of our dive sites.
It is often seen singly or in pairs, but occasionally large groups have been reported (it can be hundreds). The eagle ray is known to breach and there are isolated accounts of leaping eagle rays having accidentally landed in boats! It is usually shy and difficult to get close to underwater. Be careful! Although they generally will not get too close to humans, they can inflict serious wounds with their tails.
Eagle Ray - Are they threatened?
Spotted eagle rays are harvested in Mexico and Cuba, mostly as food. This fishing pressure, combined with their extremely low reproductive rate -after a gestation period of one year the mother ray will give birth to a maximum of four pups- make these rays a vulnerable species. But there is not enough information to determine how much danger they are in. The distribution, migration, feeding habits, growth rates and reproductive biology of spotted eagle rays are poorly defined.
Eagle Ray - Where can we see them in El Nido?
Most of Eagle Ray sighting are around Miniloc and Helicopter island.