Close Call: A Curious Manta Ray Crashes Into a Surfer in Florida

Jade Eckardt
·1 min read
3

Surfers and sea creatures have been sharing some interesting encounters, often looking like a clip from America's Funniest Home Videos, ocean edition.

There's the whale that body slammed a foil surfer, a flying dolphin that wipe out a stand-up paddleboarder, the sea lion who crashed a surf contest, an angry swan took out a wake surfer, and sea otters who steal surfboards.

The latest weird sea creature and surfer encounter to add to the list is the brazen manta ray and soft-top surfer in the clip below.

The YouTuber known as PlayHard shared the video above and captioned it:

"Surfer gets pushed by manta ray at Flagler Beach"

The clip shows a surfer paddling out towards the lineup on a soft top.

As he's paddling out, a fin pops up–probably sparking a moment of panic in the surfer–before the rest of the ray surfaces.

The ray swim right toward the nose of the board with it's mouth open and slams right into it.

Viewers were pretty stoked and maybe even a little jealous. Check out some comments below:

"There actually very friendly and curious creatures! gotta love em!"

"He was just coming to say hi"

"Wow he wanted to give you a hug"

"Bros like, locals only kook!"

According to NOAA, manta rays are "particularly curious animals." However, the organizations advises people to observe them from a safe distance and never entice manta rays to approach you.

"Disturbing manta rays may interrupt their ability to perform critical functions such as feeding, breeding, resting, and socializing," NOAA warns.

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