Inside the World of Manta Rays

During the southwest monsoon season both mantas and enormous schools of baitfish feed on the microscopic riches upwelled by the trade winds that blow across the Indian Ocean every year.

A giant mouth opens wide as a feeding reef manta somersaults backwards though the water in tight circles gorging itself on tiny plankton prey.

An orange black finned anemone fish, safe in its home among the tentacles of a sea anemone, watches a manta ray while a male ember parrotfish patrols his territory on the lookout for rival males.

Every year the Maldives southwest monsoon attracts some 800 reef manta rays to feed in the plankton rich waters along the eastern edge of Baa Atoll at sites like Hanifary Bay.

National Geographic Photographer Thomas Peschak free dives and photographs manta rays in the Maldives.

Framed by the massive pectoral fin of a whale shark, a feeding reef manta ray powers through the emerald waters that teem with tiny planktonic prey.

The ocean is an itchy place, especially for flying dinner plates like manta rays, which attract a host of unwanted parasites that attach themselves to the manta body. Luckily for mantas, small cleaner fishes, like this green moon wrasse and blue-steaks cleaner wrasse perform a full body cleaning service.

Illuminated by the light from the back of a tourist vessel in the Maldives, a juvenile reef manta ray somersaults, spinning and dancing through the beams of light for hours.