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Last week we present you Sophie Prendergast and her work. Today, she describes us how they tag free-swimming sicklefin devil rays with the Remora Tag:

"The remora tag is deployed via free-diving using a specially designed pole that attaches to the tag with magnets. This keeps the tag secured in the correct position while we are swimming. Once we find a school of devil-rays the diver must select an individual to tag. This can be difficult when you are surrounded by schools of up to 50 rays. The free-diver then proceeds to swim down perpendicular to the animal and quickly presses the tag onto the wing where it sits similarly to the remoras for which it is named. Devil-rays have powerful wings that can propel them as fast as 6m/s, therefore the forward motion of the animal is enough to separate the tag from the pole. The entire attachment process happens within a split second and can be unsuccessful if the tag is not at the correct angle or if the ray makes a sudden movement. Luckily, we are often able to try again and with the right animal and perfect position we are able to deploy the tag! After 72h the galvanic link breaks allowing water to flow into the suction cups. This releases the tag from the ray which then floats to the surface for recovery."

Sophie, Jorge Fontes, Bruno Macena and engineers at CEiiA, with the support of Save Our Seas Foundation, did an amazing work to develop this tag from scratch. 

The most novel aspect of the tag, is that it collects internal temperature data which has never been collected for this species or any other species of mobulid ray.

Great job! 

Find the video here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/okeanos-uac_last-week-we-present-you-sophie-prendergast-activity-7267206691966853122-swkt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop