Stingrays appear to glide silently through oceans, but a group of researchers in Australia have found that rays can make sounds, especially when under duress.
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Social media recordings of stingrays making sounds have now dispelled the long-held assumption that rays lacked the biological capability to make 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 tend to overwhelm other sounds produced underwater.
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Investigations of the sound production in rays are now underway, looking first to find out how they make the sounds and then the ways that they 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. The full article can be found on esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
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