The Atlantic manta ray, long thought to be part of a wider species of elusive giant rays but as one that nurses its pups off Florida鈥檚 coast, holds another secret: its mighty wings provide a lasting habitat for a host of other sea creatures.
According to and hundreds of videos shot mostly near Palm Beach County, the rays can act as a mobile home, providing food, shelter, even honeymoon suites for fish in sometimes inhospitable waters.
鈥娾�滺istorically that's been thought to be a very kind of temporary relationship. We see a fish just kind of randomly swimming with a manta ray,鈥� said researcher and lead author Emily Yeager, a doctoral candidate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School. But the decade-long dataset allowed the researchers to observe much more stable unions.
鈥娾�漈hese relationships last for at least hours, if not days, months, maybe even years in some cases,鈥� she said.
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The findings matter because they can help better protect manta rays, especially in South Florida, where one of the few documented nurseries sits in waters with heavy boat traffic and where rays are frequently spotted tangled in fishing lines or scarred by boat propellers.
鈥奜ver the last eight decades, manta ray numbers globally have plummeted because of boat strikes, climate change and fishing practices that leave them tangled in nets or targeted for either the fish that hitchhike rides or their own body parts used in Asian markets. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates a decline of up to nearly 80%. In 2018, the U.S. listed rays as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The video of nearly 500 encounters with rays off Florida caught Yeager鈥檚 attention because she鈥檚 a symbiosis scientist, meaning she studies the relationship between species to better understand their behavior.
鈥滻n order to protect those animals, we have to protect the ecosystems that they support and the ecosystems that they rely on, and that involves protecting the interactions between species,鈥� she said.
And this particular trove provided a rare chance to observe a secretive fish multiple times over many years.
鈥淭he ocean is just full of these interactions between species, but they're so much harder to study because it's usually just a passing interaction,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t's something that you see once and you can't necessarily say anything about a relationship that you only see once.鈥�
The videos were shot during surveys organized by , a researcher with the who started the Florida Manta Project in 2016 and who in 2020. (The first known nursery was discovered just two years earlier off the Texas coast. A second was confirmed a year later off Indonesia.) Between 2016 and 2024, Pate conducted hundreds of free dives, avoiding scuba gear that might influence the rays鈥� behavior.
Images show the rays, which can grow up to 20-feet wide, gliding through the water, their wing-like fins waving gratefully as cobia, sharksucker fish and others shadow their movements. The rays鈥� telltale spots or injuries allowed them to identify and track them over time. Altogether, Pate鈥檚 research team tracked 59 manta rays, with four observed more than 10 times over the years.
鈥淪tarting to unwind and understand these relationships is really important for understanding the role that these rays play in the broader ecosystems,鈥� Yeager said.
While the latest study focused on the kinds and length of time the rays and fish hung out together, research on rays elsewhere allowed Yeager to infer other answers about the services rays provide. Fish may find food scraps, hitch rides to ease drag from swimming and conserve energy, or use the massive rays as shelter while mating. Young fish might even rely on them for nurseries until they鈥檙e old enough to make it on their own.
鈥娾�漌e're seeing them again and again across months-long observation periods,鈥� Yeager said. 鈥淲hat's very cool about that is it indicates that these are more substantial and long-term associations than we might've thought otherwise.鈥�
That could be helping the fish survive in harsh environments, like busy waters off Florida or sandy bottoms, far from reefs.
鈥溾�奌aving these mobile habitats, particularly between reefs or in areas without reefs, is really a very important resource for these fish, particularly juvenile fish,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t gives them a safer place to grow up and to associate with other fish of their same species rather than sort of living on their own.鈥�
In addition to benefits, Yeager also wants to get a better understanding of their intertwined lives and why fish might stick around even in tough times. For example, she said, other research has shown pilot fish and remoras will remain with whale sharks even when they dive nearly 5,000 feet, something much tougher for the smaller fish.
Or, why certain fish prefer certain areas of the rays.
鈥娾�滻t could be a feeding thing. It could also be a hydrodynamics thing, so where they鈥檙e least likely to be pulled off,鈥� she said. 鈥娾�滿anta rays are really dynamic. They can do barrel rolls, they can flip upside down in the water. So it's important for fish, particularly remoras, which are likely stuck to them, to have a secure position where they're not going to be blown off.鈥�
For her next project, Yeager plans on looking at a similar relationship between sharks in Florida waters.
鈥娾�漈he most important takeaway from this,鈥� she said, 鈥渋s that to protect species, it's important not to just protect individuals, but to also understand and protect the systems that rely on them and that they rely on.鈥�
