In the Pacific Ocean off Canada, researchers have discovered a very intriguing phenomenon at an underwater volcano they thought was extinct.
While exploring the depths of the Pacific, scientists from the Northeast Pacific Deep-Sea Expedition made an amazing discovery. Below the surface of the sea, they sailed near an ancient extinct volcano that was 1100 meters high and almost 1.5 kilometers below the surface.
However, they found that the volcano was not extinct but was still active. But their surprise didn’t stop there, as the volcano was covered with thousands of cone-shaped eggs.
Photo credit: NEPDEP 2023
Deep-sea marine biologist Cherisse du Preez at Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not hide her surprise at the discovery of this huge nest. According to her, these eggs would belong to the Pacific white stingray: “I was stunned to realize that the top of this seamount was covered with hundreds of thousands of stingray eggs, maybe even a million.”
What makes this discovery so incredible is the fact that there are very few known locations where Pacific white stingray spawning occurs. In reality, there is only one, and that is in the Galapagos Islands, and only a few dozen eggs have been observed there: “It was an important find…I immediately realized the importance of what we had just discovered.”
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The team of scientists didn’t stop there with their surprises, because during their observation they witnessed an extremely rare spectacle. They were able to witness firsthand the spawning of a female Pacific white ray.
Photo credit: NEPDEP 2023
“We saw a large stingray crash down to the seabed. “I had thought about what the spawn would look like and it was exactly how I imagined it: it would crash to the bottom of the sea and use the coral to grab onto it and get the egg out,” reveals the biologist.
Why did the white ray choose an active volcano as its breeding ground? According to the biologist, the volcano’s heat would provide an ideal environment for the eggs’ incubation period, which lasts about four years: “The heat is thought to speed up incubation and allow the young to hatch more successfully.”
Photo credit: NEPDEP 2023
In addition, the corals present on the volcano provide a shelter for the eggs from predators: “We believe the eggs are safe here and the young rays have a better chance of surviving, growing, descending and migrating in the open sea.”