But when they get the cue that it’s meal time, they swim 18 feet to the top of the habitat to be fed. “It took a lot of training,” says Lise Christopher, collection manager of Wild Reef, “but we were able to accomplish that.” The male and female rays are hand-fed a variety of fish as well as squid and chunks of clam. In the wild, this species (Himantura granulata) has a taste for crabs, sea cucumbers, small fishes, octopus and marine worms. Because a ray’s eyes are on top of its broad, disk-shaped body, and the mouth is on the underside, it can’t see its prey. Instead, this fish uses smell and electroreceptors similar to those of its shark relatives to locate a meal as it cruises the bottom. Stingrays and sharks share the same reef feeding grounds during high tide.

In this photo, you can easily see the ray’s countershading — light on the bottom side so, when viewed from below, it’s camouflaged by bright tropical sunshine; dark on the dorsal side, with white spots, so it’s invisible in the ocean when a predator is overhead. If attacked, the ray’s defense lies in its long, white-tipped tail, which carries one or two serrated, 7-inch spines that pack a toxic wollop. But Lise notes that the whiptails are peaceable creatures. Enjoy a moment of serenity watching them ripple through the reef.