''Mobula munkiana'', commonly known as the manta de monk, Munk's devil ray, pygmy devil ray, smoothtail mobula or Munk’s pygmy devil ray is a species of ray in the family

Mobulidae The Mobulidae (manta rays and devilfishes) are a family of rays consisting mostly of large species living in the open ocean rather than on the sea bottom. Taxonomy The Mobulidae have been variously considered a subfamily of the Myliobatidae by ...

. It is found in tropical parts of the eastern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, ranging from the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California ( es, Golfo de California), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Bermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja C ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

, as well as near offshore islands such as the Galapagos, Cocos, and Malpelo. Munk's devil ray was first described in 1987 by the Italian ecologist Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara and named for his scientific mentor,

Walter Munk Walter Heinrich Munk (October 19, 1917 – February 8, 2019) was an American physical oceanographer. He was one of the first scientists to bring statistical methods to the analysis of oceanographic data. His work won awards including the Nation ...

Description

Munk's devil ray is a large fish with a horizontally flattened body, bulging eyes on the sides of its head and

gill A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

slits on the underside. It grows to a width of up to , making it the smallest species of devil ray (although it is only slightly smaller than '' M. hypostoma'' and '' M. kuhlii''). On either side of its central disc it has wide, pointed

pectoral fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as ...

s with which it swims. A pair of fleshy lobes protrude from the front of its head, enabling it to funnel food into its mouth as it moves through the water. Its

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through c ...

is small; its tail is long and slender, and does not bear a spine. The upper surface of this fish is lavender-grey to dark purplish-grey, and the underside is white, tinged with grey towards the tips of the pectoral fins. Dorsally, it is brownish to mauve-grey. Its dorsal fin has a dark rim along the edges, and is often a light grey in the middle.

Behaviour

Munk's devil ray is found in tropical oceanic and coastal waters. It can be found near the sea surface or the seabed, either alone, or in small groups or in schools. As it swims, water flows into its mouth and out through its gill slits, which filter out small particles and absorb oxygen from the water. It feeds mainly on

mysids Mysida is an order of small, shrimp-like crustaceans in the malacostracan superorder Peracarida. Their common name opossum shrimps stems from the presence of a brood pouch or "marsupium" in females. The fact that the larvae are reared in this p ...

and other

zooplankton Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...

but also on small schooling fish. Munk's devil ray has been documented to leap out of the water, either alone or in groups, performing vertical jumps, somersaults and other acrobatic manoeuvres. Munk's devil ray is

ovoviviparous Ovoviviparity, ovovivipary, ovivipary, or aplacental viviparity is a term used as a "bridging" form of reproduction between egg-laying oviparous and live-bearing viviparous reproduction. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop insi ...

, but little is known about its reproductive habits. The single developing young is at first sustained by the egg yolk and later receives nourishment from the

uterine The uterus (from Latin ''uterus'', plural ''uteri'') or womb () is the organ in the reproductive system of most female mammals, including humans that accommodates the embryonic and fetal development of one or more embryos until birth. The ...

fluids in which it is immersed.

Conservation status

The

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...

rates the conservation status of Munk's devil ray as " vulnerable". This is partly because of its low fecundity, partly because it often gets caught in

gillnets Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...

, and partly because its young are often accidentally caught by

trawling Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different spec ...

. It is also vulnerable when near the shore, especially when it is schooling. Its migratory movements are poorly understood and may relate to differences in the temperature of surface waters.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3281136 munkiana Fish of Ecuador Fish of Guatemala Taxonomy articles created by Polbot