Three new species of Monocotyle were found on the gills of the coachwhip stingray, Himantura uarnak (Rajiformes: Dasyatidae) collected at Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia (23 degrees 27' S, 151 degrees 55 'E). Monocotyle helicophallus new species, Monocotyle multiparous new species and Monocotyle spiremae new species all have a single testis and are distinguished from other described...

Adult stingrays use their ampullary electroreceptors to detect prey and locate mates, but the response properties and function of their electrosensory system in the pre-adult stages are unknown. We examined the response properties of Atlantic stingray (Dasyatis sabina) electrosensory primary afferent neurons through ontogeny to determine whether encoding of electrosensory information changes wi...

Feeding marine wildlife as a tourism experience has become a popular means by which to attract both people and wildlife, although management efforts are still in their infancy. "Stingray City Sandbar" in the Cayman Islands, where visitors can hand feed free-ranging Southern Stingrays (Dasyatis americana), is a world-famous attraction currently undergoing visitor and wildlife management. One pla...

The visual fields of elasmobranch fishes are not well characterized even though this is a fundamental element of the visual system. The batoid fishes (skates, rays) form a monophyletic clade within the subclass Elasmobranchii and exhibit a broad range of morphologies and corresponding ecologies. We hypothesized that their visual field characteristics would reflect their diverse morphology and e...

The Hawaiian stingray, Dasyatis lata, is a common benthic elasmobranch in nearshore Hawaiian waters. Acoustic telemetry was used to track the movements of seven rays in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii. Rays were tracked continuously over 31–74 h periods. Geographical movements were analyzed to determine space utilization and rate of movement. Rays were found to utilize significantly larger activity s...

This study investigated prey captures in free-ranging adult female Australian fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus) using head-mounted 3-axis accelerometers and animal-borne video cameras. Acceleration data was used to identify individual attempted prey captures (APC), and video data were used to independently verify APC and prey types. Results demonstrated that head-mounted acceleromete...