【Damdar Ladoo (2025) Complete Hindi Web Series】

The Damdar Ladoo (2025) Complete Hindi Web Seriesworld’s first confirmed manta ray nursery was found thanks to some good luck.

Marine scientist Joshua Stewart, was working to connect the dots between manta ray populations that live near each other at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.

SEE ALSO: Fishermen stumble upon a 16-foot manta ray while out at sea

What he found instead, according to a new study published in Marine Biology, was something he had barely seen in his seven years of manta ray research: a juvenile manta ray.

“On my very first dive, I saw a manta right away. [Researchers at Flower Garden Banks] had already told me that the rays there were small, so I wasn’t shocked,” Stewart said in an interview.

But when he went to take a picture of the spot pattern that essentially serves as a fingerprint on the ray's underside, he saw that the ray had a really small set of male genitals, meaning that he was a juvenile.

The team at Flower Garden Banks told him that kind of sighting was also common, which prompted him to ask for their photo archive.

Using the catalogue with 25 years of diving pictures, Stewart and staff were able to analyze the spot patterns on the bellies of countless rays to identify individuals and calculated that 95 percent of the manta rays that visit the sanctuary were actually young.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

When scientists study rays, they look for large groups of the animals, but the researchers have historically been unable to find large groups of juveniles, leaving a big hole in the research. Stewart's discovery of the manta ray nursery around the research site fills that hole.

For aquatic life, nurseries serve as a sort of unsupervised daycare where groups of young fish can grow without the fear of being hunted by larger prey.

Now that researchers know that is Flower Garden Banks is a nursery, they will be able to look for similarly situated spaces around the world and hopefully find more.

“We know that other nurseries are out there. Flower Garden Banks is just the only one we’ve been able to confirm,” Stewart said.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

There have been sightings of little groups of juveniles all over the globe, but it will take years to confirm whether those groups lead to nurseries.

In the future, Stewart and the other researchers out of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary hope to start tagging the juveniles to track their movements.

This will help them determine what the juveniles like about the banks so much.

Stewart’s guess? Safety.

With other marine life nurseries, access to food and safety from predators are two cornerstones that draw the youth to these hubs, he explained. The only way to know is to keep observing.

---

Featured Video For You

---

Take a dive with a marine biologist working to restore our ecosystem

---

• Social Good
• Digital Culture
• Shopping
• Games
• Entertainment
• Science
• Life
• Deals

• The Deal of the Art
• Humans ruined bike
• Jimmy Kimmel hits back at critics who say it's too soon to discuss gun control
• Facebook is spending $1 billion for a building that basically no one will work in
• Amnesiac Nation
• The Google Home Mini and Max are here to take on the Amazon Echo
• Microsoft launches mobile preview for Edge, the browser no one uses
• The most important Pixel 2 upgrade is, hopefully, availability
• The Book of No Despair
• Mayor of San Juan wears a 'NASTY' T

• Paramedics take terminally ill patient to see the beach one last time
• Koch brothers help Meredith buy Time magazine
• Imgur was hacked in a 2014 data breach
• 'House of Cards' production hiatus draws on in Spacey aftermath
• This 'Game of Thrones' casting news could hint at a Season 8 storyline
• Parents attempt to take selfie, accidentally record hilarious video
• Pixar's 'Coco' wins Thanksgiving box office, crushes 'Justice League'
• A roasted turkey's NYC travel diary
• What's coming to Netflix in December 2017
• Sneaking treats into the movies? Here's a clever trick

• America Shoots Itself
• The lack of save backup on the Switch is pushing Nintendo fans to endorse hacking
• Amazon owes $300 million in taxes, says EU
• Elon Musk lands himself an emotional tribute song from Weezer's former bassist
• International Man of Monocracy
• U.S. faces threat from yet another potential hurricane
• 'Bob's Burgers' serves up a Hollywood dish by announcing a feature
• Finally, a male voice for Google Assistant
• The Banality of Good
• 'Brain pills' marketed to gamers embody the worst things about video game culture

• In the House of a Thousand Likes
• The YouTube algorithm is promoting Las Vegas conspiracy theories
• Mayor of San Juan wears a 'NASTY' T
• Online video stars need to get paid—this startup thinks cryptocurrency is the answer
• Memory Keepers
• Zunum's hybrid electric planes could be in the air by 2022
• Dear Weather Channel, you're bad at naming things
• Jimmy Kimmel hits back at critics who say it's too soon to discuss gun control
• You’re a Monster, Mr. Trump
• Facebook outsources its fake news problem to Wikipedia—and an army of human moderators