- [Crew Member] Right here, right here, right here.
- [Coyote] I see it, I see it.
- [Crew Member] Oh, there he goes.
You got it, you got it.
- [Crew Member] You get him?
- I got it, I got it, I got it.
- [Crew Member] All right. - Yes!
- [Crew Member] Yes! - [Coyote] Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Hold on, he's trying to get out of the net.
(dramatic music)
(calm music)
- [Narrator] The coastline of Australia varies greatly
from region to region.
And along the Sunshine Coast,
you will find a plethora of rich,
mangrove-lined inlets known as estuaries.
An estuary is a partially enclosed body of brackish water,
which means that it is comprised
from both a fresh and salt water source.
These ecosystems are influenced
by the rising and falling of the tide
and are considered to be one of the most biodiverse
natural habitats in the world.
Today, we are exploring near the town of Maleny.
This beautiful stretch of rolling hills and coastal land
is the perfect backdrop for an episode of Beyond the Tide.
- All right guys, well this is going to be our first
Beyond the Tide episode here in Australia.
And our target species is the stingray.
As you can see right here, I have a big, sturdy net.
I'm gonna need this if I wanna catch one of these creatures
and get it up close for the cameras.
We're at low tide right now,
so there's a good chance we're gonna come across one.
Now, I'll be looking for shadows in the water,
and I want you guys to do the exact same thing.
If you see something moving, let me know.
We're gonna hopefully be able to catch it.
- Quick question. - Yeah.
- I've heard that walking in water like this
is kinda dangerous when there's stingrays around.
How do you do that?
- Ah, yes, the key movement today
is going to be shuffling our feet.
So watch this.
You wanna kinda be moving like this.
And the reason for that
is that the rays will oftentimes bury themselves down
in the sandy silt.
You don't wanna step straight down on top
of one of those barbs.
It will go right through your foot.
So by shuffling your feet, if you kick a ray,
you'll scare it, and it will take off.
And you'll avoid getting stung.
All right, guys, so everybody just drag your feet today
when we're walking.
Sound good?
- [Crew Member] Sounds good to me.
- All right, let's head this direction, going with the wind.
- [Narrator] Brackish water tends to be incredibly cloudy,
as tidal movement causes sediment on the estuary basin
to be in constant turmoil.
This environmental challenge made spotting animals
incredibly difficult.
(suspenseful music)
- The water's actually a little clearer in this area.
You can see the wind has actually kinda died down.
We've got a little bit more plant coverage
that's blocking the wind.
Let's slowly venture out into this direction.
Let me lead.
I'll let you know if I see anything.
And remember, continue to drag your feet,
because if I walk past something and don't disturb it,
there's a chance you could step right on top
of one of those barbs.
So drag those feet, guys.
- [Crew Member] All right, let's do it.
- [Narrator] As we continued inward
toward an exposed sandbar,
the tides of luck began to turn.
And there before us, the shadow of a stingray
began to materialize beneath the surface.
- [Crew Member] Got it?
- I do not.
- [Crew Member] Ah.
- Ah.
- [Crew Member] Shoot, that was close.
- That was close, though.
I think I got just on top of it.
I could feel it pulling.
Actually, it was so big, it might not fit in the net.
But that was our good first shot at it.
We definitely are seeing rays now.
It's just a matter of actually being able
to scoop one up in the net.
And I think that's the play.
Once I get close to it and it starts to move,
I need to sort of explode into action
and try to scoop it.
And what I'm trying to do is get the net
in front of its nose and then pull backwards.
Okay, well, we're getting close.
- [Crew Member] All right, good first shot.
- Keep looking.
- [Crew Member] Right here, right here, right here.
- I see it, I see it.
- [Crew Member] Get him.
- [Crew Member] Oh, there he goes.
- [Crew Member] Oh, he's right here, he's right here
in front of me.
He's right here.
Dude, he's right here.
Look at him, look at him.
- [Crew Member] There you go, he's booking.
See his wake, see his wake?
- [Coyote] Yeah.
- Put these sunglasses on.
Put these sunglasses on.
You need to see him.
Put that on.
- He's right here. - Right there, right there.
Right there, in front of him.
In front of him, you got it, you got it.
- [Crew Member] He started back, get ready.
- [Crew Member] Don't let him get out.
Stick to the open.
- [Crew Member] Did you get him?
- I got it, I got it, I got it.
- All right. - Yes!
- Yes! - Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.
It's trying to get out of the net.
Whew, all right!
Good spotting, guys.
When Mario handed off his polarizing sunglasses to me
right in the middle of that,
changed the game immediately,
and I was able to see it so much better.
- [Crew Member] Look at the spots, that's awesome.
- All right guys, we have to be really careful here.
I'm trying to determine where its barb is.
I see it, right on the back of the tail there.
Okay, it appears that this is a Maskray.
And let me do this.
You see those eyes up front there?
Wow! So bizarre looking.
All right, guys,
so that we can get this ray up close for the cameras,
it's gonna be very hard for me to handle this,
also dangerous because of the venomous barb.
But there's a little pocket of water up here.
Let's place it in that pocket,
and we'll be able
to observe it in the water
and in a situation that we can keep control.
Are you ready? - [Crew Member] Yep.
- I'm gonna quickly move it up here.
All right, let's get it into this pocket of water here.
Let me check the temperature first.
Yeah, this is plenty cool.
This is perfect.
Okay, I'm gonna let it gently sorta swim out here.
- That's a great ray, man.
- It really is.
Look at the eyeballs.
They look just like the eyes of a crocodile
positioned on top of its head there.
Now some species of rays have very wide-set eyes.
They don't have the best eyesight.
And similar to sharks, they have sensory organs
on the front of their noses
that allow them to sense for their prey.
Now this species, I could tell you this much,
I actually have my finger in its mouth right now.
It doesn't have teeth.
It just has these flat plates
that he uses to grab onto its food and grind it up.
Now some species of rays do in fact have teeth.
You could see him constantly trying to move here,
because it is capable of spinning its tail around.
And what I don't wanna take
is the sting from that barbed tail.
Let me turn it like this.
And while I'm talking about what it eats,
it eats small crustaceans, little fish, mollusks.
They're pretty opportunistic.
A ray of this size would even take something
like a small octopus.
But I know what you guys are really interested in
is that tail.
And look at that, this one has two venomous spines.
Those are modified dermal dendrites,
basically like scales growing out of this creature's body.
It does have a very narrow row of them
down the middle of the spine, and there at the tail,
double stinger.
Now, that stinger is laced with venom.
And similar to a lionfish,
they actually have a membrane-like sheath over the stinger.
And when it inserts into something
that's trying to attack it,
that sheath sort of peels away,
and the venom is then leaked into whatever it is
that's being stung.
Now they do not use their stingers at all
for catching their food.
They're strictly used as a defense mechanism.
And as you can see,
it's kind of flicking its tail around there.
I'm just trying to keep my fingers away from that tail.
Now some ray species have two stingers like this one.
Many only have a single stinger.
In some species, stingers can grow up to a foot in length.
I tell you what you don't want to happen,
a foot-long stinger going through your arm.
Let me see if I can just slowly lift you up there
a little bit, buddy.
Now the gills of this creature are actually
on the underside of its body.
And what I'm gonna do now is try to lift it up
by just holding on to the base of the tail.
Nope, I don't think I'm gonna be able to do that,
because the tail of this species is short.
Let me give that one more try though.
I can hold on to these air holes
and the back of its tail like this.
I'm trying not to take a sting.
This doesn't hurt it in any way whatsoever.
Look at the underside there.
See if you can see those gills.
Do you see the gills under there?
- [Crew Member] Yep, hold it there.
I can see the mouth working too.
- There you go, buddy.
And that's about as much as I want to try
to actually handle this animal.
As you can see, it's breathing
by passing water over its gills.
You see these two air vents right here?
The water comes in through the mouth, pass the gills,
and then out through these little orifices right there.
Similar to an octopus,
the way that an octopus can shoot water
out of those little valves on the side of its body,
this guy is also capable of shooting water off to the sides.
- [Crew Member] So he's breathing just fine right now.
- Oh, yeah, he's completely fine.
And like I said,
I wanna try to handle it as little as possible.
Now because we know that rays are related to sharks,
you may be asking yourself,
"Well, Coyote, does its skin feel just like a shark?
"Is it scratchy like sandpaper?"
I honestly thought that this ray would be scratchy,
but it's not.
It's incredibly smooth and has a gelatinous membrane
covering its skin.
It feels just like a frog or a salamander.
Yeah, go ahead, touch it real gently there.
Let me just kinda keep it positioned down.
- [Crew Member] Oh, wow. - [Coyote] How about that?
Right? - [Crew Member] It does feel
like an amphibian.
- [Coyote] And look at the coloration,
almost looks like the coloration of the smokey jungle frog.
- [Crew Member] Actually, you know what it reminds me of?
- [Coyote] What's that?
- [Crew Member] A green sea turtle.
- A little bit.
Well, and again, that camouflage is so incredibly crucial
for this animal's survival.
Look at this substrate, right?
All these little snails and this sand,
so this creature laying on the basin of the river
stays perfectly hidden.
Now the way that they hunt
is using something called
defensive mimicry, right?
It works in two ways, partially to hide them from predators,
but also to keep them hidden
for anything that wanders into their territory.
So if something wanders close, it can launch forward
and grab onto it, and eat it.
That's obviously also considered ambush predatory,
where it stays in one spot
and waits for its food to come to it.
Okay, I'm just gonna lift here just a little bit.
Look at the unique design of this animal's body.
You see that?
Look at that.
- [Crew Member] You don't realize that rays
have fins on the back.
- Yeah, they do, and that helps to control
the direction in which they move.
Now there are over 200 species of rays worldwide,
and they come in so many different, unique shapes and sizes.
For a Maskray, this is about average size,
maybe even considered large for this species.
But some species, like the Manta ray,
can grow to be massive in length,
from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other,
close to 15 feet in length.
- [Crew Member] Wow.
- All right, he's getting close to wanting
to head back off into the river.
Well, let's talk about that barb one more time.
Now, if you are stung by a stingray,
fear not, it is not going to kill you.
The venom is just extremely painful.
And the way to actually stop that venom from hurting
is to submerge the stung appendage of your body
in pretty hot water,
pretty much as hot as you can stand.
Very similar to the sting of a lionfish.
And one thing that you do need to be wary of though,
is that that barb has the potential of breaking off
in the wound.
So you wanna make sure you seek medical attention
and get that looked at.
All right, guys, I think at this point
this ray is ready to head back off into the river.
But how cool was this, coming out here
into the Australian estuaries
and finally catching and getting up close for the cameras,
a stingray?
I'm Coyote Peterson.
Be brave.
Whew, stay wild.
We'll see you on the next adventure.
All right, let's get this guy back into the river.
- [Narrator] Stingrays are naturally docile
and non-threatening towards humans.
However, they have the potential
to be dangerous if provoked.
When walking in an area
where these marine creatures may be present,
it's advised to cautiously drag your feet
through the sand and sediment.
This tactic decreases the chances
of accidentally stepping on a resting stingray
and in turn, lessens your odds of ever feeling the wrath
from that venomous stinger.
- All right, and there he goes.
Man, that was awesome!
- [Crew Member] Man, you caught one.
- It took some effort though, didn't it?
- [Crew Member] Yeah, man,
that was the perfect size ray, though.
- Yeah, anything bigger than that,
it wasn't gonna fit in the net.
All right, guys, our first official stingray episode
is in the books.
- [Narrator] If you thought the stingray
was a fascinating creature,
make sure to go back and watch the episode
where I was slimed by a giant black sea slug, yuck!
And don't forget, subscribe
so you can join me and the crew
on our next low-tide adventure.