What do rays see?

[davenmandy]

I wonder if something in their environment could be causing loss of vision. Maybe lights are too bright, substrate and background are too confusing for them to distinguish between, could they be old rays maybe? My bet is theyre fine, like most people are saying on her they probably have great eyesight only slightly impeded by the disc in front of it, but I am just offering an explanation if you are really hung up on something being wrong with your specific rays vision. I know if I drop food where my rays arent hanging out, they will start circling around looking for it, and pounce on it once it touches their disc, but that makes sense considering their line of sight is probably not overly geared towards looking down on the ground (other senses help their scavenging). I would say they are more geared to look ahead and slightly above them to nab the fish swimming above. Try to look for environmental causes, possibly long term, that could have resulted in damage to the rays eyesight if you are concerned, but im pretty sure most people's rays SEEM like they swim around blind.

Something to think about, when your rays come to your glass to greet you (waiting for food or otherwise) the front part of their disc is right in front of their eyes directly, and it obviously does not bother them one bit.

 

[Mr. Allgood]

I have a large variety of tank mates who are just fine. I have a low, natural light from two 36" marineland db leds. No one gets picked on and I have 3 adult rays and 7 pups. I will see if I can come up with some experiments and make a video. I'm no dullard and I have toyed with this question quite a bit.

 

[vamptrev]

Mine seem to see pretty well. If you watch closely you can see their eyes moving too its pretty cool


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[Mr. Allgood]

I have seen those slight eye movements but I have dangled lots of foods and food containers at every angle from outside the tank and have witnessed zero recognition. They go about their business at all times until they smell food. I can dip some water out of my tank with a rinsed worm cup and they get super excited but use identical non worm cup and they don't care. Obviously they smell the worms in the used cup but they do not connect the cup or its color to food. When hand feeding, my wc adults get spooked when they run into my hand with the edge of their disk but if I keep my hand a couple inches above the substrate they will run their eyes right into my hand and not even care. They never tuck their eye until actually coming in contact with another object, no matter how obvious. They best sign of visual recognition comes when my large net is within a few inches of them. It will turn them around but only when they get very close to it. Although this appears to be visual, that doesn't necessarily mean it is.

 

[DavidW]

maybe some will recall:
About 3 years ago on this and other forums I asked for someone to donate a live ray.
Live is needed because eyes don't preserve well, even in formaldehyde.
I had people, US university head of dept microbiologists, fish pathologists and an eye specialist all lined up who were willing to do the work at my expense to determine things like a ray's field of view, visual acuity, color awareness ( rods and cones) etc.
It would have been super informative.
no-one would donate a live ray, not even a retic.
no-one.
If anyone would care to donate I will reach out again to those specialists.....
anything else is just chatter

 

[Mr. Allgood]

People love their rays so it is understandable that no one would donate one. I would donate $ for a wc retic from a lfs local to the university because it's just going to die anyways but I could never give up a healthy pup to a knife even for the sake of science. A study as you describe is exactly what I have been searching for online. It is hard to believe that no one has looked into the subject.

 

[Just Toby]

When my rays see me they are at the glass and begging, they do this by sucking on the base of the tank and make a loud sucking noise. For the first year only the male did it but the female seems to have learned it too. If I sit near the tank at night and do not feed them by 9pm they are too noisey to ignore. They come to the end of the tank if my daughter is in the room as she has always sat and perched at that end. Normally when I clean the tank they are super relaxed, my daughter helped this weekend and it seemed to spook them. I think they have brilliant senses and wonderful eyesight.

 

[Mr. Allgood]

So my new marble clearly has great eye sight. I wonder if it is just a retic thing... The marble's sight is unquestionable yet the retics still haven't convinced me that they can see very well. Any other retic owners out there?

 

[hereticlosmorte]

my old retics were the ones i was speaking of in my previous posts on this thread, very sharp eyesight, knew me from across the room, vs anyone else, etc.
smart little buggers too, used to know exactly how to get past the separator.

 

[Mr. Allgood]

Now that I have had a few species, I can say with 100% certainty that my retics could not see half as well as other rays. My retics came from different places, some cb, and they were in the same setup as my current rays so they could not have lost their eyesight due to some common occurrence. I wish I had recorded a video of my 'sight tests' before I lost all my retics. Now it is pointless because my current rays can clearly see across the room. I will always wonder. I tried getting the state vet to look into their eyes when he was performing the necropsy but he seemed lost when I started talking about rods and cones...