Heere is a photograph of a stingray leaping out of the water to get out of the way from a predator. This has been circulating around the internet for a while but I got this copy at the site at this link:
http://lostintarnation.blogspot.com/2009/06/red-alert-flying-stingrays.html
And I also got another email from one of the "Pterodactyl" witnesses mentioned on this blog before, saying that a woman of his acquaintence saw a Pterodactl with a long thin whiplike tail, and she described it as looking like a stingray. The correspondant was still convinced she had seen a Pterodactyl, but I still think an ordinary stingray is still much more likely.
Best Wishes, Dale D.
"The correspondent was still convinced she had seen a Pterodactyl, but I still think an ordinary stingray is still much more likely."
ReplyDeleteNot if it was over land, or over head.
Just for the record (and as a professional diver with over 5000 logged dives) I think that's actually an Eagle Ray, not a stingray.
ReplyDeleteBeing almost exclusively bottom dwellers a Stingray is unlikely to breach - Manta's definitely do, as do Eagle Rays, and not just when being pursued by predators as appears to be the case in your picture - more than once I've seen an Eagle Ray breach while I'm underwater, and there have been no predators around. There is speculation they do this to remove parasites, though I prefer to thing they're doing it just for fun.
But a stingray? Unlikely...
Unless she misreported it, or was lying, or the collector of reports was misrepresenting the report or was lying, or making unwarranted inferrances NOT explicit in the original report.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, if you think you have pertinent information regarding this case, you should share it. If you are only hrowing comments out to make an argument, well then there you go. The statement made earlier was that the majority of these reports take place on seashore or on islands and are reported years or even decades later. Under those circumstances witnesses might easily misremember such things as the direction the creature was relative to the shore or orientation relative to themselves.
In the specific instances cited before, in Wales, South America and in Central Africa, there is no question about it: witnesses are describing stingrays emerging out of the water rather than Pterosaurs circling overhead.
Best Wishes, Dale D.
It is possible that it is an eagle ray, but there are no cl;ear determinative markings that would nmake the identification certain.
ReplyDeleteAt any event the point under discussion is whether or not stingrays breech and I have adequate anecdotal information that pursuades me that this can happen on occasion, as indicated in my last response. In this case, you do not have adequate grounds for definitely stating otherwise, even if this one ray should turn out to be an eagle ray. You would therefore have to discount each individual allegation to discount the entire category, not simply the one given example.
Best Wishes, Dale D.