One of our members came across a shovelnose ray in shallow water recently and wanted to take some closeups of its eyes.
“My vision was blurry at the time, and the mask probably could have been cleaner(?) but I took some photos, although I could not see clearly what I was photographing.”
“In reviewing these pictures, which aren’t in great focus (as I was overly buoyant, so it was very difficult to get a steady shot), I realized it looks very much that the ray’s eyes are actually closed in the closer shots.
“Do rays actually close their eyes or blink? I have heard how sharks can roll their eyes back in their sockets to avoid damage when attacking prey, but thought fish never blinked or closed their eyes.
“If these fish (shovelnose rays) can close their eyes, or blink, do other fish do the same?”
I saw this for the first time today! First with a bluespotted maskray and then an eastern fiddler ray. It was like they sucked the whole eye ridge down into the skull! I got some very blurry photos too. I guess blind sharks also got their name from squeezing their eyes shut when caught?
Thanks for these details, Meg
Hi Meg and Steve,
very much what I thought although only from the blurry media after the fact. I did try having a closer look after finding this with some others I later found, and it is very much like what Meg said. The eyes will retract down inside the socket (if light pressure is applied from above), so the covering tissue then covers the eye, but they are not really keen about this. Not exactly recommended and generally will avoid making such contact with stuff (such behaviour can be easily interpreted as an attack or aggression and try not to disturb things generally). Guessing with the activity at the time of getting the footage the ray was able to do this as a protective response.
Chris.