The real BATMAN

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coeus;3419358; said:
there are a few species of saltwater ray that have the same appearance as the batman ray but are not defective


these were not this kind. these were Atlantic stingray, very rare to see batman in this species.
 
csx4236;3418920; said:
Doing great eating all time and super active.

:headbang2:headbang2:headbang2

vladfloroff;3419001; said:
Get two batman rays and breed them in both low and high temps. Then determine if the offspring are bats and if the bat features have any correlation to water temp. Not something a dead ray could answer. To approach the question with dissection and gene/protein analysis would cost tens of thousands. Also we don't know enough about normal ray genetics to understand the variation found in the batman ray.

Wow, impressive thinking! :)

Ummmmm only question is, who could possibly own both a female and male batman stingray?

Breeding batmans? Ohhh yet another wonderful topic of discussion! YUMMY! I love it....lol :D

Umm perhaps I shall start a thread on this subject!!!!
 
keepinfish;3419080; said:
One thing i learned this week about batman rays that is very interesting. I was diving in the cayman islands this last week and saw a half batman ray in the wild. Which makes me think it is not environment that causes this as this ray was in the wild. It was a saltwater ray however but should not make much difference. I would think genetics....It was a mature female. Unfortunatly i damaged the camera that i took a picture of the ray with. So no pictures this time.

Seeing a wild ray does not preclude that the 'batman effect' is not caused by environmental factors. Rays are still subject to changes in environment in the wild.

The theory is not only temp - but varying environmental factors...
 
Again you are confusing yourself... what is the research mean to do? To help prevent or help create it. :confused: Either way will not work. An over product of any 'defect' will simply reduce the market price, which is based on the snob value of rarity. Why would Mike try to prevent extra cash from flowing into his pocket?

Even if you needed a batman ray to experiment on, only an idiot would pick a Leopoldi batman, when Motoro Batmans rays are readily available at a fraction of the cost. I only see one person who's counting the eggs in the chickens ass by suggesting the future benefits of killing a ray worth a few grand.

Mike is a breeder not a zoo keeper. Gain a lot? A lot of what? The Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese out purchase the AZA by about 10000 to 1. Those people are crazy about hybrids and will pay more for a batman too.

I'll also tell you this for a fact. Mike breeds hybrids and Mike sell to zoos. The biggest commercial breeders all do.

The market follows the money, not some crazy attempt at ecological or scientific nobility.

Even if you wanted the ecological moral high ground, actually funding research on a frivolous subjects like Batman rays,which have absolutely no impact on wild rays, is silly beyond belief. There are so many other more important unanswered questions about rays.

Stop wearing scientific, buddy, ecologist hats when all thats driving you is this Nazi hobbyistic dislike for supposed imperfections.

DavidW;3405276; said:
:)
Lincoln. IMO Its you that obviously doesn't know what you are talking about. Talk about 'mouthing off'? You should engage your brain before operating your mouth.
I am in touch with major vendors and fishermen and researchers in Brazil probably 4 or 5 times a week. I probably know what Mike will pay before he does. I know much about what is shipped to Asia and the crazy money some people are paying for defective animals.I have probably had, kept, bred and sold more rays than you have had hot dinners, and I was doing it before you even knew rays existed.
If this ( or any other) batman defective ray was sacrificed to research and was able to produce some answers about the batman DEFECT then it would be worth far more dead than alive, far more than $2k if it could have prevented for instance, the batman defect in the P14 in another thread. The health and understanding of the species should come before any individual ray, especially a defective one that could provide useful information for us all.
It would not have cost Mike $2k to sacrifice the ray, only the money he might have made, he would not actually lose $$s but in the long run might gain a lot. You cannot count the eggs still in the chicken's ass. BTW, MIke is a friend :)
"Hybridizing' rays also makes a lot of money for some. But...if , for instance, you have customers in the AZA, they probably will NOT buy from you again if you are allowing your rays to hybridize, as immediately you start allowing that everything you have becomes suspect, and the AZA and all Zoos etc around the globe are all about preservation of existing species, NOT creation of new ones. It is only a badly informed hobbyist who wished to remain that way who would take your approach.

As for the cause: I still think that it is possibly a DNA transcription error cause by bad environment. Not genetic per se.( Statistically )
One common denominator for all people breeding their rays and getting this defect is keeping the temp high. Temperature is a known factor in transcription error in other species, A wrong temp of only 5 degrees is known to cause birth defects . The water temperature in the Amazon is lower than most of you keep your rays at ( 72-82 most of the time,) with only occasional rises alive 85, rays caught in high temperature seasonal pools usually die there from lack of oxygen. But of course, if you lower your temperatures to what is a more normal range for your rays they might not breed as often.

All ray exports from Brazil will probably be cut off very soon due to massive quota abuse, ( in fact NO shipments of ANYTHING AT ALL are currently being allowed out of Brazil...ref the big bust mentioned in a recent thread) so if what is now in captivity remains the total stock then surely it is in everyones' best interest to find the cause of this defect through scientific investigation, which often requires sacrifice.
 
bumpy
 
Any updates csx? How's he doing?
 
DavidW;3405276; said:
:)
Lincoln. IMO Its you that obviously doesn't know what you are talking about. Talk about 'mouthing off'? You should engage your brain before operating your mouth.
I am in touch with major vendors and fishermen and researchers in Brazil probably 4 or 5 times a week. I probably know what Mike will pay before he does. I know much about what is shipped to Asia and the crazy money some people are paying for defective animals.I have probably had, kept, bred and sold more rays than you have had hot dinners, and I was doing it before you even knew rays existed.
If this ( or any other) batman defective ray was sacrificed to research and was able to produce some answers about the batman DEFECT then it would be worth far more dead than alive, far more than $2k if it could have prevented for instance, the batman defect in the P14 in another thread. The health and understanding of the species should come before any individual ray, especially a defective one that could provide useful information for us all.
It would not have cost Mike $2k to sacrifice the ray, only the money he might have made, he would not actually lose $$s but in the long run might gain a lot. You cannot count the eggs still in the chicken's ass. BTW, MIke is a friend :)
"Hybridizing' rays also makes a lot of money for some. But...if , for instance, you have customers in the AZA, they probably will NOT buy from you again if you are allowing your rays to hybridize, as immediately you start allowing that everything you have becomes suspect, and the AZA and all Zoos etc around the globe are all about preservation of existing species, NOT creation of new ones. It is only a badly informed hobbyist who wished to remain that way who would take your approach.

As for the cause: I still think that it is possibly a DNA transcription error cause by bad environment. Not genetic per se.( Statistically )
One common denominator for all people breeding their rays and getting this defect is keeping the temp high. Temperature is a known factor in transcription error in other species, A wrong temp of only 5 degrees is known to cause birth defects . The water temperature in the Amazon is lower than most of you keep your rays at ( 72-82 most of the time,) with only occasional rises alive 85, rays caught in high temperature seasonal pools usually die there from lack of oxygen. But of course, if you lower your temperatures to what is a more normal range for your rays they might not breed as often.

All ray exports from Brazil will probably be cut off very soon due to massive quota abuse, ( in fact NO shipments of ANYTHING AT ALL are currently being allowed out of Brazil...ref the big bust mentioned in a recent thread) so if what is now in captivity remains the total stock then surely it is in everyones' best interest to find the cause of this defect through scientific investigation, which often requires sacrifice.

I can order wild batman rays out of peru. How do you explain that? :popcorn:
 
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