There is always something new to learn as a window of knowledge. One of the interesting things that can be learned is recognizing the characteristics of animals.

There are three divisions of animal husbandry groups that need to be known. That is, viviparous reproduction is carried out by giving birth, oviparous reproduction by laying eggs, and ovoviviparous reproduction by laying eggs and giving birth.

On this occasion we will talk about a type of animal that reproduces by laying eggs and also giving birth (ovoviviparous). An example of an ovoviviparous animal is the ray. There is a type of stingray that is also an animal that produces electricity.

Entered in the class Elasmobranchii, rays are found in a group of cartilaginous fish that have a whip-like tail. Also, rays are included in the shark family. The part of the body that can be considered very flat, allows the ray to live and hide on the seabed.

By using the instinct of smell, rays can target their prey. The main prey that rays target are marine animals that have soft bodies, marine animals that have hard bodies, and small fish.

Basically, rays reproduce by laying eggs. However, several other types of rays reproduce by giving birth. Interestingly, stingrays give birth to their young after the eggs on their bodies hatch.

The mating process that occurs is that the male ray fertilizes the female ray. With the fertilization process that occurs quickly, which only lasts 90 seconds. When the fertilization process has been successful, the female ray contains a ray which is then stored in her body.

Possible stingray chicks, or what is known as an embryo, will hatch later when the pregnancy is old enough. The fertilization process that occurs in rays is very fast, but the gestation period for female rays is quite long, from 9 to 12 months.

Manta rays will produce 5 to 9 stingray chicks in one fertilization. Interesting right? Not only that, there are other interesting things that have been found regarding the stingray breeding process.

That is, there were cases of parthenogenetic reproduction of rays. In this case, this rare animal in Thailand can give birth to children without the fertilization process that produces sperm in the embryo. Although this is very rare and rare, but this case was found in Australia.