Why are stingrays flat

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Science Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. Science The controversial sale of 'Big John,' the world's largest Triceratops. When they find dinner, stingrays crush their meal using strong jaws. Generally, female stingrays give birth once a year. They usually have two to six young at a time. While a baby stingray is still inside its mother, it grows to be quite large and developed so that when it's born, it looks like a little adult.

From birth, the young stingray is able to fend for itself. All rights reserved. Personality Quizzes. Funny Fill-In. Amazing Animals. Weird But True! However, there is one species of stingray that lives in open ocean waters, called the pelagic stingray Pteroplatytrygon violacea , he said.

Stingrays range in size from about as small as a dinner plate to as big as The largest species is the giant freshwater stingray Himantura chaophraya , found in rivers in southeast Asia.

Some specimens of freshwater stingray have been known to weigh up to 1, lbs kg. Related: Giant stingray could be world's largest freshwater fish. Most species of stingrays sport dull colors that help with camouflage, though some do have more lively colors, such as the blue-spotted stingray Taeniura lymma , Kajiura said.

Stingrays, manta rays and eagle rays are all related and belong to the same order, Myliobatiformes, but each are in different families and differ from one another in several ways. For example, the manta ray's mouth is located on the front of their bodies rather than on the bottom, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA.

Also, manta rays aren't hunters like stingrays, but are filter feeders, swimming with their mouth open to sift out small animals living in the water column, Kajiura said.

Manta rays also have two small appendages that stick out on either side of their mouth called cephalic fins, according to NOAA, which stingrays don't have. And while there are over species of stingrays, there are just 2 species of manta rays. Related: Rare pink manta ray caught courting lady friend down under. Eagle rays, such as the spotted eagle ray Aetobatus narinari , have angular wing flaps and a distinct snout that manta rays and stingrays don't have, according to the Florida Museum.

Eagle rays also have rounded pelvic fins near their tail, and the tail itself is much longer than either a manta ray or stingray. Sometimes, eagle rays travel in schools and will leap completely out of the water to avoid predators, according to the Florida Museum.

Stingrays eat bottom-dwelling prey, such as worms, clams and shrimp, according to SeaWorld Orlando. Freshwater stingrays eat insects as well.

As those creatures and any others move through the water, they generate a bioelectric field, or electrical signature of sorts, said Kyle Newton, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Stingrays are able to detect the bioelectric fields of the animals around them using a network of special sensory organs called ampullae of Lorenzini.

These organs are small, fluid-filled electrical receptors that are located near the stingray's mouth and look like tiny black holes in the animal's skin, according to National Geographic. All sharks and rays have ampullae of Lorenzini, and a few other species of fish have been reported to have the unique organs as well, including lungfish and sturgeon. Related: Clever cuttlefish 'freeze' bioelectric fields to avoid predators.

Once they've located and captured their prey with the help of their ampullae of Lorenzini, stingrays use their hard teeth to break the shells of their victims, and can even chew their meal, rather than gulping it down. Stingrays go through a lot of teeth, shedding a complete set every 10 to 30 days, Kajiura said. Most of the time, stingrays have rounded, flat molars, but during mating season, the male stingray's teeth become pointed, though not as pointed or as large as shark teeth.

The stingray "is the only vertebrate we've documented that has seasonal changes in tooth shape," Kajiura said.