My aquarium visits tend to focus on fish that are brightly colored, on cute penguins and well-trained porpoises. I know there's much more, but that's what I'm drawn to.
But here's the exception. On a visit to Boston's New England Aquarium, I found myself almost unable to leave the large tank in which a variety of rays lie still, suddenly flip over, glide through the water and otherwise occupy themselves.
And that's the why for today's photo selections: Rays in a tank may well be the aquarium equivalent of the internet's cat-and-dog videos.
On the technical side, rays of all kinds are 'batoids,' members of a group that includes sharks, skates and other fish with cartilage instead of bone in their skeletons. Rays are the largest group; there are over 600 species in 26 families. If you really want to know all about their internals and details, you can find a lot of detail HERE, but best be prepared to dust off your high-school science vocabulary!
With all that variety, only a small part of which is represented here, there are many variations of size and color—but I've yet to figure out which one inspired GM to name a Corvette model Stingray!
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