• Did you know stingrays have no bones in their body? Instead, their skeleton is made up of flexible cartilage (the bendy stuff that your ears and nose are made from!).
• Stingrays use their sense of smell and electroreceptors special pores around their faces that can detect the electrical currents to find food.
• Stingrays and sharks actually have a lot in common. Their bodies are both made up of cartilage, and they have the same type of teeth. They both have scales that cover their bodies called dermal denticles.
• Despite being related, stingrays need to keep an eye out for sharks, as a visit from one can be deadly. Other common predators include large fish and seals.
• The flat fish are ‘ovoviviparous’ which means they give birth to a fully formed offspring rather than laying eggs. Female stingrays will give birth up to twice a year.
• Females stingrays are larger than males , they also tend to live longer! Some female stingrays can live for up to 22 years on average, whereas males tend to live for about seven years.
• Did you know that stingrays existed at the same time as the dinosaurs? Evidence has been found of a stingray fossil that dates over 50 million years old!