Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Scientist Identifies New Manta Ray Species: Dr. Andrea Marshall's Discovery of the Atlantic Manta

Transcript

Scientist Identifies New Manta Ray Species: Dr. Andrea Marshall's Discovery of the Atlantic Manta · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Ladies and gentlemen, I have a special announcement to make, actually
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  two special announcements to make.
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  One is personal to me.
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  I'm gonna say that after.
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  But the first thing is that there has been a new discovery, a new species
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  of manta ray, the Atlantic Manta Ray that has been announced and discovered.
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  It is by a dear friend of the podcast as well as the Beyond Jaws podcast, Dr.
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  Andrea Marshall and her Marine Megafauna Foundation.
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  I'm gonna go through the story, but I'm very excited to be announcing this.
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  This is a huge news in the science world, in the SMA brank world, the
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  shark ray, and kymera species world.
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  Because it's a new species.
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  There's only been two before.
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  Now there's a third.
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  We're gonna get into it.
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  The other thing I wanted to announce very quickly, this is episode 1801.
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  So that's 1,801 episodes.
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  I was gonna make the announcement last time, but I was really into the episode.
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  I want to do this.
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  It's such a good news episode.
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  I decided to like, you know what, we got two great new
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  things that are happening today.
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  So this is, again, going into the 18 hundreds for me, which is huge as a
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  podcaster, as well as talking about the new discovery of a new manta ray the
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  Atlantic Manta Ray that is coming, from the Marine Mega Foundation and Dr. Andrea
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  Marshall and her crew, loving this day.
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  Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find
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  out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean,
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  and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
• 1:23
  If you wanna take action before we get into all this wonderful good
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  news, I got good news for you.
• 1:27
  If you wanna take action, you can help be guided to take better action for
• 1:30
  the ocean by joining the undertow.
• 1:32
  It's an online community of ocean lovers, ocean scientists, ocean conservationists.
• 1:38
  There's gonna be wave makers that are there.
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  People who independently are putting through projects just like mine,
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  like this podcast as well as other wave makers out there that are going
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  around the world and giving you stories and giving you information
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  to help you better protect the ocean.
• 1:52
  There's gonna be vetted, products that you could buy.
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  There's gonna be ocean connection trips that you can make.
• 1:58
  And there's just gonna be just discussions on a regular basis about the ocean.
• 2:00
  No algorithms straight up discussion.
• 2:02
  Ocean news, it's gonna be awesome.
• 2:04
  Go to speak up for blue.com/join the undertow.
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  Let's get to it.
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  This is a great story.
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  So I want to go through this story because it's something that
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  I feel is really great and it starts off with Andrea Marshall.
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  Andrea Marshall was no stranger to manta rays.
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  She has spent years underwater studying their graceful movement.
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  In 2009, she made history by proving that there wasn't just
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  one manta ray species, but two.
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  The moment shook the marine biology world.
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  But even then, a mystery lingered in the back of her mind while diving the
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  Atlantic off the Yucatan Peninsula, she saw something that didn't quite fit.
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  These mantas looked familiar, but something was different.
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  Their shoulder markings weren't shaped like a T, but like a sharp
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  V. Their coloration was lighter and their spots on their bellies
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  didn't stretch the way they should.
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  She trusted her instinct.
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  This wasn't just a local variation.
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  It could be something entirely new.
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  She began documenting everything, photographs, samples, observations.
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  Every time she saw one, her conviction grew stronger, but science
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  doesn't run on instinct alone.
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  Years passed and still the evidence remains circumstantial.
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  She reached out to collaborators across the Atlantic and the Caribbean.
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  They too had seen these odd rays, but no one had the full picture.
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  The mystery deepen the weight of proof sat heavy.
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  Meanwhile, her conservation work expanded globally.
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  And then in 2024, tragedy struck.
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  Andrea suffered a sudden brain aneurysm.
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  Her world turned upside down.
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  Research pause, communication slowed, but her colleagues didn't stop.
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  Jessica Pate and Nayara Bucair picked up the baton.
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  They gathered the data Andrea had compiled over the years.
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  They ran the genetics compared body structure map sightings,
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  and finally the results were in.
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  This was not a variation, it was a distinct species.
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  They named it Mobula Yarae after the mythic Brazilian water spirit, a name
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  that reflected both mystery and reverence.
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  Andrea awoke to the news from her recovery.
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  The third manta ray species was real.
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  A 15 year journey through dives, doubts, and dreams finally had its answer.
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  And she had been right all along.
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  Now the ocean had a new story to tell.
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  A story of resilience of the ocean and of the people who study it, of how
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  science sometimes requires stubbornness, faith, and decades of quiet work.
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  The Atlantic Manta Ray was no longer a ghost species.
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  It had a name, place, and a future, and Dr. Andrea Marshall had once again
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  rewritten what we thought we knew about the sea, not by accident, but
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  by listening closely to the ocean and to the science and never letting go.
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  This was a special announcement that was made.
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  You know, Andrea had an interview done on the Beyond Jaws podcast was the
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  first time I got to meet her with my co-host Dr. David Ebert, who has known
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  Andrea for years and years and years.
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  In 2024 when we got News of the Aneurysm, you know, it was devastating to hear.
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  She is such an amazing scientist.
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  And to have this announcement come out, as she's recovering from that aneurysm and
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  being able to see and understand that this has a profound effect on how we study and
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  monitor, manta rays and the importance of how important science is to this world,
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  There's so many things that we can do now in monitoring these different
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  species and protecting them because it's not just a global population.
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  It's a type of animal that has distinct species throughout each different ocean.
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  And I think it's gonna be really important to see how this monitoring,
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  how this management, and also how many other species are out there
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  that we just don't know about.
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  And it's gonna take people who are in the water, like Andrea, like other
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  staff at Marine Mega Foundation and other partners, that they have to
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  be able to say, Hey, you know what?
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  We know a lot more about the species than we did before.
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  it costs money.
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  There's a lot of funding that's involved.
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  There's a lot of people that's involved.
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  There's a lot of time that's involved to study these animals.
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  And a lot of the times in the shark world, if you watch the Beyond Jaws
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  Podcast it just takes a number of individuals to go out and study these.
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  And sometimes it's often a low amount of individuals, just a small
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  amount of individuals that go out and that study these animals and
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  that discover new species, new populations just all over the world.
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  Not just manta rays, but other shark species and other species
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  that are living in the ocean.
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  Whether it be fish, whether it be vertebrates, invertebrates,
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  it doesn't matter.
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  There are people out there that are in the ocean time and after time,
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  after time making observations, discovering these species.
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  Sometimes it's in partnership with non-scientists.
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  Sometimes it's in partnership with local communities.
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  Oftentimes it's in partnerships with local communities, in areas around the
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  world that as scientists, we don't really know very well, but we partner
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  with these local like communities who are like, yeah, we've seen the species.
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  These are the markings that we normally see.
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  How are they different from others?
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  And we have that communication go around.
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  The science gets put into one place.
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  We put out a paper to say, Hey, you know what?
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  This is a new species, or it's not a new species, or it's just like a hybrid.
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  it's really, really great.
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  There's actually a really great episode on Shark Bytes, which I will link in
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  the show notes that you can see about hybrid great whites and what that means
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  in terms of where they're traveling and the distinct lineages, not species,
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  but lineages of these great whites.
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  All over the world and how they're mixing and where they're
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  going and how they got there.
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  It's a really, really great piece.
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  really great video and I'm gonna link to it below.
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  But this is what people are going out and looking at.
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  This is why science needs to be funded.
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  And if we don't fund this science, we're not gonna make these discoveries.
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  We're not gonna understand the oceans better.
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  And you never know what these species and the habitats that they use and
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  how they'll help us in the future understand our planet better, protect us
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  better, and maybe live in more harmony.
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  So that's the episode for today.
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  I hope you enjoyed it.
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  I will link to the Marine Mega Foundation article on this third
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  species, but also, if you are interested in supporting them, you can do that.
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  There's a button called Support us.
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  Highly recommend that you go do that, to allow them to do
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  more of this type of stuff.
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  There are other manta ray foundations that are out there
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  that are doing great work as well.
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  The Manta Trust is one of them.
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  I'll link to that one as well.
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  It's very important that we support these organizations in discovering more about
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  marine megafauna than we've ever had.
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  It's really, really important that we do that, to understand biodiversity,
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  to understand why we need to protect these species, and just
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  understand the species in general.
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  So thank you so much for listening to this episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I hope you enjoyed the good news.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nor Strong and Free.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.