- Animals
- News
How did this rare pink manta get its color?
Spotted recently off the Great Barrier Reef, the little-seen fish's rosy hue is not due to infection or diet, scientists say.
Photographer Kristian Laine was freediving recently off the southernmost island of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef when a bright pink manta ray glided by. He thought for sure that his camera was malfunctioning.
“I had no idea there were pink mantas in the world, so I was confused and thought my strobes were broken or doing something weird,” says Laine, whose photographs posted on Instagram this week have gone viral. Laine later realized he’d spotted an 11-foot male reef manta ray named after Inspector Clouseau, the bumbling detective of the Pink Panther movies. The fish, who cruises the waters around Lady Elliot Island, is the only known pink manta ray in the world.
First spotted in 2015, Inspector