Welcome to the Marine Mili series, a regular column about all things marine! During this series I aim to inspire people to want to protect our oceans and all the marine life that call our oceans home. Hopefully after reading each column, you would have learnt something new including what we can do to help protect and preserve our oceans. You can follow me and my journey on my Instagram page: _marine_mili.
The Southern Eagle Ray can be found in Victoria across Westernport and Port Phillip Bay.
This species can weigh up to 50 kg and grow to a length of roughly three metres, which is slightly smaller than a car.
Southern Eagle Rays have a brownish colour skin and blue/grey spots and stripes on their back.
These spots help scientists identify individuals, as no two ray's spots look the same. Think of it as a fingerprint for stingrays.
The wings or pectoral fins of this species are unique; other ray species such as the Smooth Ray, have round wings.
The Southern Eagle Ray's long, triangular shaped wings help them efficiently manoeuvre through the water.
Being bottom dwellers and sifting through sand to find food with their snout, a Southern Eagle Ray's diet mainly consists of small fish and invertebrates, which they eat off the seafloor
Taking a closer look at this beautiful species of stingray, you will notice they have an opening located behind both their eyes called spiracles. Spiracles are used to filter oxygenated water so the ray can breathe even when they're not moving.
This species is also great at camouflage. The Southern Eagle Ray can bury itself under the sand to hide from potential predators such as sharks.
Like other stingrays, the Southern Eagle Ray does in fact have a venomous barb, although that doesn’t mean that they are not safe to swim with. I have swam, snorkelled and scuba dived with stingrays many times and they happen to be one of my favourite creatures to interact with.
Stingrays will not sting you unless they feel threatened. However, if a ray wants you to leave it alone, it will curl its tail (which is where their venomous barb is located), raising it up like a scorpion. This means you should not try and interact with it.