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Thu 09 Sep 2010, 03:08

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Tonic immobility

General discussion regarding freshwater stingrays

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Tonic immobility

Postby DavidW on Sun 07 Feb 2010, 17:08

I recently watched a great documentary on TV called "the whale that ate jaws", showing a great white shark being killed by an Orca off the coast of L.A.


Link

clip, not the complete show.

Apparently the Orca rammed the 3 meter white shark, then held it upside down until it died, then ate only its liver.
The film went on to explain what exactly was happening , and how the Orcas hunt rays and sharks with this specialist technique, a culture developed by a particular Pod, and what is happening to the Elasmos to make them so vulnerable.

Experiments and film in the docu show that most of not all Marine sharks and Rays are subject to Tonic immobility. If you turn them upside down they become comatose. Something happens in their brains. If they remain that way too long they can die. Turn them back upright and they immediately normalize. When they are comatose they don't need any anesthetic even for surgical proceedures (this was shown on a 2 meter long Lemon shark WOW!)

Potamotrygon (etc) are also prone to this....or are they? Is it to the same degree?
I have tube fed large Tiger and other Pots. in the past. They seemed to go catatonic when i turned them upside down, completely stopped thrashing their tails and became quite still.
When importing direct sometimes a ray would arrive dead and upside down.

Is this response enough to make MS222 etc unnecessary when treating your rays for something way that requires them to be still?

What are your experiences or thoughts on this?

:)
DavidW
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Re: Tonic immobility

Postby SplaXe on Sun 07 Feb 2010, 17:39

I added a link that goes to the movie trough a proxy server, otherwise it won't play.

http://www.webdico.com/red/index.php?q= ... 0Rr&hl=2ed
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Re: Tonic immobility

Postby Lode on Sun 07 Feb 2010, 18:31

Very interesting. Amazing how intelligent hunters Orca's are

I haven't noticed this phenomenon with rays myself. Important to keep in mind when packing stingrays for shipment. This might also be a safe (for ray and human) way to handle rays when it is nescessay. For instance when putting a tube over the stinger. Next time we prepare a large ray for shipping we will try and test it.

@Frank: thanks for uploading. I looked up a legal version on YouTube and added it to David's post also :)

Edit:
Just trying to figure out how to flip over a large ray, don't think it's a easy or safe job... haha
Bekijk ook 'ns de database http://www.stingrays.eu
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Re: Tonic immobility

Postby DavidW on Sun 07 Feb 2010, 20:38

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/s ... s/07504_00

The proper link to Nat geo.

I hope it also works for you.
In the first video, starting at about 1 minute into it ,you also see the Orcas hunting large rays...clever clever!
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Re: Tonic immobility

Postby FABIEN on Tue 09 Feb 2010, 16:54

An other example of Orca's intelligence...

Link


Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3xmqbNsRSk
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