Marine rays have an otherworldly appearance, a reminder of a time when evolution was still sorting out the basic body designs of life.
I stumbled across two species while in the Galapagos.
A school of Eagle rays moves through Kicker Rock. (Photo / Galapagos Science Center)
At Kicker Rock off San Cristobal Island, the water turns a deep aquamarine when shrouded in the shadows cast by the enormous pillars of rock. As I snorkeled between their sheer walls, a group of
spotted eagle rays appeared suddenly below out of the gloom, only a few feet away. Surprisingly, I was able to match them stroke for stroke, swimming first above them and then alongside. What made them all the more eerie was that they did not acknowledge me in any way, no matter how closely I approached. As I circled around them, they never changed their pace or direction, as if answering a call I couldn’t hear. Their dark brown, spotted back stood out against the pale white of their belly. As if to add just one more oddity, a blunt snout protruded from their head.
The broad flaps at their sides wove through the water with an elegant rhythm that was so hypnotizing that I had to make myself break off pursuit before I ended up stranded on the open sea. One by one they disappeared back into the gloom.
At Tijeretas I turned around to see a diamond stingray sweeping along the bottom of the cove toward me. It was much smaller than the eagle rays but no less captivating. The ruffle of its sides stirred up small clouds of sand as it moved along the bottom and over rocks strewn with algae. Eventually, it stopped near a ridge of rock to settle into the sand. And there it sat stoically for as long as I cared to watch.
