Nom nom nom.

Oh my god

Manta ray

Its a blanket ray

That... never occurred to me before. Wow.

Careful with those, you could attract a sea bear. Make sure you draw a proper anti sea bear circle around you.

But make sure to check the sea fire risk index first

A pissed off stingray is what killed Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. Though that's supposedly the only stingray related death caught on camera.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Irwin

The main risk is that they can be very well camouflaged if they are sitting on the sea floor, so if you step on them by accident they may sting. Steve Irwin’s situation was a real oddity, as he was stung in the heart (he was swimming over top of the ray and it must have gotten spooked) - more commonly people are stung in the foot which is painful but not deadly.

Like most wildlife, they should be given space if you are unsure. But there are many tame ones that are fed regularly near tourist resorts, and they tend to swim up and tickle your legs when you stand in the water.

At the very least, the ones in Grand Cayman are really docile and friendly to humans.

The danger is not they biting you.

I had an employee at a touch tank at an aquarium explain to me that stingrays swim around in giant schools constantly touching each other so they really just like being pet and touched, and as we were chatting (it was a really slow day) I could see the stingrays dancing and getting antsy because they weren't getting enough attention and the employee just kept petting them as they kept coming up and bouncing out of the water clearly going "Pet me! Pet me!"

I’ve been here. Not to the ocean floor but to Grand Cayman where the Stingrays are. They are so accustomed to tourists feeding them the all gather in one area where the boats go to see them .

For a period of time, boats were banned from this because predators figured out they could have a Stingray buffet.