What you can see during a 1 hour at our Manta Cleaning Station:

• Sometimes you see a brown cloud coming out of a mantas rear end. This means the manta is having a poo.
• On occasion you see a bag like ‘thing’ several times coming in and out of the mantas rear end. It is an intestinal eversion – most likely it is to clear the intestines.
• We see mantas with many spots on their bellies and some with just a few spots. They are like our thumb prints as each manta has unique spots. You can identify a manta by its spot pattern. Manta Trust is a research organisation who keeps a record.
• We see mantas with injuries, mostly at their tail end as they can’t turn their heads to look around. These injuries are mostly a result from shark bites or boat strikes. Luckily mantas have the super-power of regenerating their skin and even big wounds heal.
• We see female mantas with mating scars on their left wing. These scars are the signs where the male manta is ‘biting’ down to get a hold on the female to perform the mating ritual.
• We do see pregnant mantas. Their pregnancy ‘bump’ is visible on their belly and their backs as well. A baby manta is ‘folded up’ in the females belly. At birth it already has a wingspan of up to 2 meters.
• Female mantas are bigger. They have to be, as they give birth to big babies.
• We see mantas with long tails and short tails. In a cleaning station the little cleaner wrasse nibble on the mantas tails and take a little bit off. The shorter the tail the older the manta.
• In a busy cleaning station mantas juggle for the best position to be cleaned. They perform some great manoeuvers around each other. They even push each other out of the way.
• Sometimes a manta gets frightened and does a quick skittish turn. This manoeuvre can be a reaction to an unexpected touch. A cleaner wrasse that bites too deep can cause the same reaction.
• Sometimes it looks like they touch each other softly on purpose – whatever that means.
• We have watched male mantas swimming double-decker style alongside a female doing some acrobatic turns together.
• We often see mantas with their mouth wide open. This enables cleaner wrasse to swim in and out through the gills and clean properly.
• Sometimes mantas come close to the divers and swim directly over the top of our heads. It seems like they use our bubbles to dislodge some parasites or just to enjoy the tickling effect of our bubbles.
• Sometimes we are eye to eye with a manta and it seems like they really look at us.

Have you been lucky enough to spend 1 hour at a manta cleaning station? Let us know what kind of behaviour you were able to observe.