World's First Captive-Born Manta Ray

This week, Japan announced the first-ever manta ray to be born in captivity (watch some of the pregnancy here). The baby female manta was gestated for over a year. Manta rays are often caught incidentally by longline and purse seine fisheries. Their global populations, like most elasmobranches (cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and rays), are largely unknown as is their lifespan (thought we do know they feed on plankton). Manta birostris has been listed on the IUCN Red List. But maybe someday we can supplement wild ray populations with aquarium-born ones. Babies born in big glass pools, just another shifting baseline.