Author: Abbey Perreault / Source: Atlas Obscura
Few have watched a manta ray glide through the ocean, fins flapping, mouth agape, without getting chills. The oft-open-mouthed, filter-feeding fish makes us wonder if magic is real. It also makes us wonder, what gets in that mouth? And where does it all go?
At California State University, Fullerton, assistant professor and researcher Misty Paig-Tran was asking the same question. After spending hours watching online videos of manta rays feeding, she couldn’t wrap her head around the mechanics of its mouth. The manta ray is a filter feeder, sifting microscopic plankton and small fish from the ocean as it moves through the water. “All previous research had reported that mantas use a sieving mechanism,” says Dr. Paig-Tran. “Think: Using a kitchen colander to separate pasta from water.” But inevitably, she points out, all sieves clog. “So what I was seeing didn’t jive with what I knew about the mechanics of sieving.”
If your lunch is reliant upon floating through your environment with an open mouth, you’d better have a way to prevent major food clogs. From baleen whales to bivalves, filter feeders utilize a wide variety of solid-fluid separation mechanisms that circumvent this. According to the New York Times, the basking shark is a classic “siever” with a curious unclogging mechanism. Once it’s done the sorting, it dislodges the pileup of…
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