Franklin man believes he spotted rare ray while scuba diving in Bora Bora
FRANKLIN - A Franklin scuba diver went to Bora Bora for a relaxing vacation and believes he may have ended up with footage of a rare ray.
"Over the years, I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of conventional spotted eagle rays," said Ken Steinhardt, a diver of more than 20 years. "I'm not sure what I have found, but it was certainly friendly."
He saw the ray in the water and hopped in with his 4K camera. He figured it was a typical eagle ray until he got home and looked at the footage. He says normally eagle rays are a black or dark purple color with solid white spots. His camera captured a brown ray with distinct and odd shaped spots.
"Even where we were, I have video of conventional spotted eagle rays, and this does not look anything like them. The body shape is right, but coloration and pattern is very different," said Steinhardt. "I tried to look on the web to see what I had, and I kept coming up blank or with misinformation. So I said I better bounce this off a true marine biologist to see what I had found. Was this a variation of something common, or truly something quite rare?"
We reached out to the New England Aquarium for further advice. Three scientists at the aquarium watched Steinhardt's video and concluded it is a "usual" spotted eagle ray.
"The pattern is much more along the lines of a spotted eagle ray, though we can understand why the diver had hope this might be a rarer and more ornate eagle ray since it initially seemed to be browner in coloration. So, the diver's first instinct was likely correct here -- Aetobatus ocellatus ," the scientists said.
The aquarium says spotted eagle rays in the Pacific and Atlantic can have patterns that range from white spots to circles and lines.