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Hi, I'm Carol Larson, the education team leader at the National Aquarium of New Zealand.
The Short-tailed Stingray is one of my favourite animals here at the National Aquarium of New
Zealand. When you watch them with the diver, they're like big puppies. They're very curious,
they swoop in when the diver's feeding, they knock over the bucket, they nudge each other,
they nudge something new. They're actually quite friendly creatures.
Stingrays in general aren't dangerous or aggressive creatures, and in clear water, they'll simply
swim away from people. You'll often find the Stingray covered up,
sitting on the bottom, well-camouflaged and disguised, hard to see, so an unsuspecting
swimmer might stand on the bottom and step on the Stingray. The Stingray might be sleeping,
and it might be woken up and grumpy, and might feel threatened, so that's when the barb comes
out. He's only trying to protect himself. When alarmed or threatened, a Stingray will
bring his tail up over the top of his body, and his barb will shoot out like a spear.
A Stingray's barb is powerful enough to puncture wetsuits and injure swimmers.
Here in New Zealand we have two types of Stingray -- the Long-tail Stingray and the Short-tail
Stingray. At the National Aquarium of New Zealand we have the Short-tail Stingray.
Stingrays can reach 1.8 metres in width, and they're found around New Zealand on rocky
coastlines and on sandy beaches. Each day we feed the Stingrays in the Oceanarium,
so if you stick around, you might see the diver feeding them.