Thought To Be World’s Only Pink Manta Ray Photographed By Australian

Kristian Laine spends a lot of time working on his underwater images. When sorting through some manta ray files, he noticed one ray had a distinctive pink color. His initial impression was that his strobe was malfunctioning intermittently. Turns out there is one eleven foot pink ray, known as Inspector Clouseau (think Pink Panther movies). Biologists have been able to obtain a skin sample, which enabled them to rule out diet, injuries, and infections as causes for the coloration. Genetic testing revealed a mutation that would account for it, though.

Laine has accounts on Instagram and Facebook, plus an online shop.

Photo illustration derived from Inspector Clouseau (detail), 2021, by Kristian Lane. Original from his Instagram feed

—via www.thisiscolossal.com