CONTACT: Jennifer Diliberti
DATE: May 12, 2008
PHONE: 414.256.5411

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A Swimming Comeback at the Milwaukee County Zoo!

Sting Ray

Sting Ray & Shark Reef
sponsored by Sundance Vacations opens May 24

The toothy, yet tame animals that made a splash last year at the Zoo are back for a return engagement! “Sting Ray & Shark Reef,” sponsored by Sundance Vacations, opens Saturday, May 24, and runs through September 7 (and weekends through September 28), and the animals are just as beautiful and as fun to touch as they were last year. The Zoo’s Otto Borchert Family Special Exhibits Building will be transformed into a tropical paradise showcasing these amazing animals.

As you venture into the exhibition, follow the sounds of splashing water as you come upon the exhibit’s 6,000-gallon pool, featuring two species of non-aggressive sharks. Both Bamboo and Nurse Sharks are on display for visitors to touch and feed:

Bamboo Sharks: Found across the northern coast of Australia and the IndoPacific north to Japan and west to India’s east coast, their bodies are slender with broad paddle-shaped pectoral fins that are used to wedge themselves into crevices to avoid predators. This species is often confused with the Nurse or Blind Shark, but can be easily distinguished by the conspicuous white edges to its gills.

The Bamboo Shark is common in shallow reef areas where it feeds on invertebrates, like crabs and shelled mollusks, as well as small fish. This shark has the ability to live for extended periods out of water, possibly in response to its tendency to become stranded in rock pools at low tide.

Nurse Sharks: The Nurse shark is a common inshore bottom-dwelling shark, found in tropical and subtropical waters in the western Atlantic from Rhode Island down to southern Brazil; in the eastern Atlantic from Cameroon to Gabon; in the Eastern Pacific form the southern Baja California to Peru; and around the islands of the Caribbean.

These sharks are nocturnal animals, spending the day in large inactive groups up to 40 individuals. Hidden under submerged ledges or in crevices within the reef, Nurse Sharks seem to prefer specific resting sites and return to them each day after the night’s hunting. Their diet consists mainly of crustaceans, mollusks and other fish – particularly sting rays.

As visitors move to the larger touch pool, this 11,000-gallon habitat features two species of sting rays, the Cownose and the Southern Red Sting Ray, floating like flying carpets through the water.

Most closely related to their exhibit neighbors, the sharks, sting rays are generally found swimming, or partially buried in the sand, in the shallow coastal waters of temperate oceans. They move through the water by moving their bodies like a wave, or by flapping their fins like wings. The mouth of a sting ray is actually located on its belly, which makes for easy eating when searching ocean floors for food. Further characteristics of these species include:

Cownose Rays: Found throughout a large part of the western Atlantic and Caribbean from New England in the north to southern Brazil, these rays don’t have a particularly distinctive coloration, but its shape is recognizable. Its eyes peek out from the sides of its broad head, and on the ray’s front side there are two modified fins which form a suction, allowing it to vacuum up food from small cracks.

Cownose rays are voracious eaters, sustaining themselves on a diet of hard clams, oysters and other invertebrates. Rays move as a group, and their synchronized wing flaps stir up sediment allowing them to find buried clams and oysters. When they locate the prey, they place it in their jaws and break it into small pieces.

Southern Red Sting Ray: This ray can be found in the western Atlantic from as far north as the coast of New Jersey, around the Gulf of Mexico and south to southern Brazil. Southern Sting Rays prefer to live in sandy bottoms, seagrass beds, lagoons and reefs, often near cleaning stations where they are cleaned of parasites by the bluehead wrasse and Spanish hogfish.

This ray primarily feeds at night on worms, crustaceans and small fishes. They feed by flapping their wings to create depressions in the sand, exposing their prey. Southern Sting Rays have a flat, diamond-shaped body with an indistinct head. They are gray to dark brown in color, and have a pale belly.

The only exhibit of its kind in Wisconsin, “Sting Ray & Shark Reef” offers a unique experience to visitors: the opportunity to touch and feed these unusual marine mammals without leaving the state!

The exhibit is $2 after regular Zoo admission, and food for the animals is an additional $1. Both the sting rays and the sharks are fed several times throughout the day.

For more information on the exhibit, please contact the Zoo’s Public Affairs and Services Division at (414) 256-5466

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