Stingrockor

 

Pomatotrygon hystrix

In the rainforest at Aquaria Water Museum, a family of freshwater stingrays have their home. They thrive in the artificial environment, and have given birth to a total of twelve young rays. The latest batch were quintuplets – five little males, named ”Bengtsson Five”. They are right now swimming in the entrance aquarium at Aquaria Water Museum.

Fresh water stingrays live in the rivers of South American rainforests, where they search the bottom for food, such as clams, shrimps and worms. If threatened, they dig themselves down in the sand, hardly visible to the naked eye. If, despite this, they get attacked, frightened or stepped on, they sting using a a poisonous spine on the tail. The poison is lethal, but can easily be destroyed by heat, since it is protein-based. If you get stung, you place the attacked limb in 50°C water for an hour. This is a risk in itself, since blood is based on proteins too.

Freshwater stingrays give birth to live young. The young are about 9 cm in diameter at birth, and grow to about 70 cm as adults. So far we are the only public aquarium in Sweden that has succeded in breeding freshwater stingrays Our rays have become very social and prefer to be handfed by members of our staff.

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