A U.S. Coast Guard crew encountered a strange creature off Louisiana that resembled a giant mouth with fins — and it was headed straight for their boat.
Video of the encounter shows the dark shape eventually revealed itself to be a large manta ray — a species that can exceed 20 feet in width.
“Check out this giant curious creature the crew stumbled upon,” the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Venice (Louisiana) wrote on Facebook. “I don’t know who was more shocked: The crew or the manta ray!”
The ray appeared to be checking out the crew’s 45-foot widget and got within a few feet before ducking under the boat.
It happened Saturday, June 17, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and the crew reports six to eight manta rays were seen feeding around the boat.
The manta ray was estimated at 8 feet in width, but it looked much bigger in person, the crew said.
Such encounters are not rare for U.S. Coast Guard boats, but it can still be awe-inspiring for crews, officials said.
Manta rays are known to frequent the waters “75 to 115 miles off the coast of Texas and Louisiana,” NOAA Fisheries reports. The average size is a 14-foot wingspan in the Gulf of Mexico, though giant manta rays can reach 30 feet, experts say.
They are not a threat to humans.
“Mantas eat plankton — more specifically zooplankton,” according to Manta Ray Advocates. “This consists of copepods, mysid shrimp, crab larva, mollusk larvae and fish eggs. Think of an ‘alphabet soup’ of small and microscopic organisms of various kinds and species. Most of them can not or hardly be seen with the naked eye.”
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