Our My Ocean Challenge this Endangered Species Day is to collect as many photos as possible of the manta rays seen in Sharm el Sheikh. 

Our guests have been witness to 12 sightings in just one month as the water warms up and the plankton and jellyfish move in!  Many other centers in Sharm are sharing sightings on Facebook too.

So why are photographs important?  Mantas have their own individual fingerprint in the pattern on their bellies, and by photographing it our guests can help scientists track down previous sightings of the same manta elsewhere in the world.  This helps us to understand migration behaviour.

Size and sex are also important.  Manta Birostris can grow to seven meters in size but the ones we see in Sharm are typically between 3-4 meters wingspan.  These are not fully grown adults but juveniles.  90% of the mantas we see in Sharm are Giants but we do occassionally witness reef mantas and mobula rays.  It is quite rare to get all species in the same waters.

All our sightings are sent to Dr Andrea Marshall to assist with her research and photos are uploaded to the Manta Matcher database.