Monday, March 10, 2014

Sharks Part 2 Why are Rays and Sharks Family


As we continue to study sharks, we took a look at the Manta Ray. Selena learned that Rays are in the same family as Sharks, but why? She quickly understood why when she discovered that Rays skeleton is also made of cartilage. We watched a video made in Mexico where scientists study the Manta Rays. Did you know that the Spanish actually named the Manta Ray, which is translated as blanket?

We learned that there are 480 different species of Rays in our Oceans. They swim around 250 miles looking for food and eat plankton and small fish. Some Rays are bottom feeders, while the Manta Ray eats as it swims. The Rays gills are on it's bottom side compared to most fish who's gills are on the side of their bodies.

The Manta Ray grows to be 25 feet and 4000 pounds. We measured our living room and Selena quickly decided a Manta Ray would not fit in our house. Now we can go back and finish up our study of the Shark. Selena is having so much fun and truly was surprised to discover the relationship between the Ray and the Shark, especially after learning that the Great White Shark eats Rays.
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3 comments:

  1. This is the type of learning that is the finest, isn't it?

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  2. Batman loves manta rays. So we've studied them off and on quite often.

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  3. Hmm... I am sure Smarty knows what manta rays are, but she never expressed much interest in fish. She didn't even want to watch Finding Nemo. It's great that Selena has so much interest in the natural world.

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