Reef Manta Ray

Photo: Luis P. B. · CC BY-NC

Reef mantas use Two Mile Reef as a cleaning station, hovering over specific coral heads where wrasse and other cleaner fish remove parasites and dead skin in choreographed visits that can last 20 minutes or more. The channel's upwelling currents concentrate zooplankton along the reef crest, and mantas feeding here perform elegant barrel rolls through plankton clouds with mouths wide open, their cephalic fins unfurling to funnel water toward their gill rakers. Individual mantas are identifiable by their unique ventral spot patterns, and researchers have built a catalogue tracking movements between Bazaruto, southern Mozambique, and Madagascar.