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Giant Pacific manta, San Benedicto	Giant Pacific manta, San Benedicto	Manta, West Papua	Manta in Yap, Micronesia	Giant Pacific manta, San Benedicto
Giant Pacific manta, San Benedicto	Chevron manta, San Benedicto	Giant Pacific manta, Soccorro	Mobula ray at Kakaban, Indonesia	Manta, West Papua
Giant Pacific manta San Benedicto	Giant Pacific manta, Soccorro	Manta in Yap, Micronesia	Giant Pacific manta, San Benedicto	Yap manta squadron
Int = intermediate | Juv = juvenile

One of the seas most graceful pelagics, the manta ray is the largest of all the ray species and one of the biggest creatures in the sea. Mantas are found throughout the tropics and in temperate waters. They live mostly on or near coral reefs. They are principally plankton feeders and usually inhabit areas where there is a good flow of plankton rich waters.

The genus manta is sometimes placed in its own family, Mobulidae, but FishBase (www.fishbase.org) puts mantas into the family Myliobatidae. There is some confusion as to how many species of manta there are. At one point it was thought there were four, but currently, this assessment has dropped to three (Manta birostris, Manta ehrenbergii and Manta raya) but as these are so similar, it as been suggested that they are all a single species with localised variations. Another member of the group are mobula rays, a smaller animal that looks much the same but mobulas are nearly always seen in groups and are less patterned with just a dark collar behind their mouths and a brown tinge to their skin.

Manta rays can weigh as much 1300 kilograms (3000lb) and be as wide as 6.5 meters or 22 feet from wing tip to wing tip. These wings are actually their pectoral fins. While most are black on their top and white on their tummies occasionally you will see all black animals. The markings on their stomachs – blotches, dashes and streaks – are unique to each animal and can be used to identify them.

LOCATION: San Benedicto, Islas Revillagigedo, Mexico
DIVE SITE: The Boiler
DEPTH: 25 metres
SPECIES: Manta birostris
COMMON NAME:
Giant Pacific manta ray

IMAGE: Talking to the manta
DIVE LOG: Swam anticlockwise around a pinnacle of rock. The sheer walls looked like they were made of millions of thin layers, almost like a stack of paper. There were whitetip sharks below and a lot of Clarion angelfish, which are indigenous to the area. Went around a bend and up over a plateau to come face to face with this enormous manta ray. She remained hanging about, flapping slowly to and fro between divers. She was incredibly interested in being interactive, approaching certain divers and hovering beside them to make eye contact.