Ornate Eagle Ray Artificial Selection

            The trait I am selecting for is more offspring per litter. Each Ornate Eagle Ray can have up to four offspring already, so to do the selection process I will take females that have came from a litter of four, and take males that have came from a litter of four, then mate them. After that I will take the ones that have the most offspring and mate them with offspring from other litters of four. I would continue this process for 100 generations, careful not to mate siblings or cousins, until every Ornate Ray that has come from my process bares 4 offspring each. I chose to select this trait because the Ornate Ray is endangered and this would aid in population growth. Unfortunately, the age of sexual maturity and the gestation period is not known for the Ornate Eagle Ray (14), but the Spotted Eagle Ray (a close relative) reaches sexual maturity at age 3, and its gestation period is 4 months (16), so for 100 generations to occur, it would take 333 years and approximately 4 months. The look of the ray won't change much, because the change that's going to happen is going to be internal, but I would assume that to carry more offspring the Ornate Ray would need to grow larger than before.

Ornate Eagle Ray

Mottled Eagle Ray

The scientific name of the Ornate Eagle Ray is Aetomylaeus vespertilio.

One of the closely related species is the Banded Eagle ray (Aetomylaeus nichofii) (9). The Banded Eagle Ray lives in the Indian Ocean and western and northwestern parts of the Pacific Ocean (12), it feeds on worms, crustaceans, snails, and bony fish. Another closely related species is the Mottled Eagle Ray (Aetomylaeus maculatus) (9). The Mottled Eagle Ray lives in the eastern parts of the Indian Ocean, the western and central parts of the Pacific Ocean and the north parts of the Pacific. The dietary composition is unknown for this species (13), but I would assume they would eat worms, crustaceans and bony fish, considering most other Eagle Rays eat those.

Locations of the Ornate Eagle Ray (15)

The Ornate Eagle Ray lives in the Indian ocean and the western coasts of the pacific ocean (10), it usually lives close to the ocean floor in fairly shallow waters. What the Ornate Eagle ray eats is currently not known but what the Spotted Eagle Ray (a species much more common) eats is mollusks and crustaceans such as clams, shrimp, oysters, octopus, squids, sea urchins and also bony fish (11), I would assume the Ornate Eagle Ray has a fairly similar diet, meaning that the Ray has a fairly broad niche. The eagle ray is more of a generalist because it has a wide diet and lives in different places. There are many reasons why the Eagle Ray is endangered. The Ornate Eagle Ray appears to be naturally uncommon and is rarely observed. That combined with the threat the Ornate Eagle Ray faces from a variety of inshore demersal fisheries (14) is the reason that the Ornate Eagle Ray is endangered. If the Ornate Ray went extinct I don't think much would be affected, because it is so rare in nature already. Although the populations of some of the foods the ray eats might increase, I don't think that the increase would be dramatic because the foods that the Eagle ray eats has other predators. A good zoo habitat for this ray would be a large warm water aquarium that is fairly shallow with many crustaceans and worms. Other fish could also be in this habitat as they will not affect the Ornate Eagle ray.

Behavioural Adaptations of The Ornate Eagle Ray

Ornate Eagle Ray spotted in the Philippine Sea (4)

Behavioural Adaptations
One of the behavioural adaptations of the Ornate Eagle Ray is that it stays close to the seafloor, in fairly shallow waters. It stays close to the seafloor because thats where most of the food that it eats lives. (3) It also swims close to the bottom of shallow waters because then it doesn't encounter predators as often because it blends in so well to the seafloor. (8) It doesn't usually go beyond depths of 110m. (5)  Rays mating behaviour is that one female will be followed by a chain of males, one of them hoping to win her as a mate. (7)

Structural Adaptations of The Ornate Eagle Ray

An ornate eagle ray spotted off the east coast of Australia (1)

Structural Adaptations

The Ornate Eagle Ray feeds on bottom dwelling animals like mollusks and crustaceans, they use their rostral lobes to grab it and then use their flattened plate teeth to crush them. (2) To avoid predators like sharks, they can blend into their surroundings because of the colour of their body and the flat nature of their body. They also use their ability to swim fast to out swim their predators. (8) The reproduction method Ornate Eagle Rays use is Ovoviviparity, which means the embryo develops inside eggs in the mothers body, and are born live. (5)(6)