On Sat, 18 Aug 2001 Crusty Russ <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I didn't know that stingrays could live in fresh water...
>
>http://www.nwf.org/natlwild/2001/rayas01.html

Thanks for that link Russ. Sure was an interesting read.
A couple of things gave me a laugh for various reasons. One was actually
quite serious at the time but we laughed about it later.

Firstly this:
Piermarini has learned that the Atlantic stingray boosts its urine output
tenfold to rid itself of excess water.

Fortunately Ive not been underneath a school of bumpheaded parrotfish that
are busy crapping all over the place .. but Ive seen others caught in the
downpour. Imagine being pee-ed on by a school of stingrays :-(

The second part that caught my attention was:
Ray stings are quite common among water enthusiasts on the Florida coast
and in other stingray-rich locales. In Seal Beach, California, for example,
200 to 500 stingray-related injuries are reported each summer along a
stretch of coastline that is less than a mile long.

Im glad to see that no one has gone berserk insisting stringrays are to be
culled because of these injuries. It alarms me greatly when mass hysteria
overcomes common sense resulting in that sea creature's untimely death.

And, last but not least the interesting snippet about electric rays:
Pacific electric rays, for example, can discharge as much as 50
volts. "That's a lot of juice," he says. It's certainly enough to scare off
a sea lion or stop the heart of a scuba diver who ventures too close.
Some divers aren't quite so lucky. Each year, one to five divers
mysteriously turn up dead in Southern California, showing no sign of
equipment failure or trauma. Experts suspect that the deaths may be
attributable to run-ins with Pacific electric rays.

We tease Pete about this now saying he is a danger to himself .. but at the
time it was not funny. We were enjoying a night dive under the Busselton
Jetty with the group spread out amongst all the pylons. A couple of us were
slightly ahead of the group & I kept turning around to look back to see if
there were any dive lights going around in circles. That was our signal for
something all would be interested in to either photograph or film on video.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw an unusual flash that I knew was not from
a strobe or a dive light. I shot over to investigate & found Pete lying
completely still face down. His reg had fallen out of his mouth so I
cleared it & shoved it back in. While pulling him up to face me he suddenly
came round. On the surface I found out he had been tracking a numb ray and
must have put his hand down on another numb ray while propping himself up
for a close shop. I certainly was more alert that night while photographing
the nudibranchs on the sea floor. These numb rays are quite dark in colour
(so I hear as I have yet to see one in the wild) blending in nicely with
all the debris lying around under a jetty.
Viv