The Ocean Stingers
Stingrays, specifically southern stingrays, are scientifically called dasyatis Americana. They are a member of the genus Dasyatis, and the family Dasyatidae. They are a member of the family Dasyatidae because they are stingrays with a certain type of tail. Southern stingrays are members of the genus Dasyatis. To know what this genus means, you have to break it up. “Dasys” means rough or dense, and “batus” means shark. The southern stingray looks scary, but is actually an amazing and interesting creature. (Long)
Southern Stingrays use a type of breeding called ovoviviparity. When stingrays are born, the egg they’re born in hatches inside the mother. The baby uses the yolk as food until it’s ready to come out. This form of reproduction is useful because the baby will be born where they can’t be harmed directly by predators. They will only be released when it’s old enough to fend off predators. (Long)
Dasyatis …show more content…
The different kinds of relationships that the rays will usually make are mutualistic, commensal, predatory, and sometimes parasitic. They have a mutualistic relationship with certain fish that will clean the stingrays. The ray gets cleaned, and the small fish get a meal. Southern Stingrays also have a commensal relation with fish that swim near them to take the leftover food that the rays leave behind. The rays don’t get anything out of it, but the other fish get leftovers. (Long)
The southern stingray also has some relationships where there might be an unfavorable outcome. The rays are prey to other sharks. Most sharks won’t notice the rays beneath the sand, but hammerhead sharks can use their senses to find them beneath the sand. The last kind of relation is a parasitic relationship. Sometimes ectoparasites latch on to the rays. The parasites are usually taken off by cleaning fish, so the parasites rarely cause any major damage.