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Expecting baby rays at Trop?

It looks like the latest Tampa Bay lineup just might be calling up some “minor leaguers” in the future.

By JOHN BARRY
Published July 28, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG — The rays are hitting homers at Tropicana Field. No, not the Devil Rays. The way the Devil Rays have been playing, your grandmother would have a better chance of putting one over the fence.

It’s those other rays at the Trop. The cownoses. Thirty of them, 20 males, 10 females. Brought over from the Florida Aquarium in July. Plopped in a 10,000-gallon tank south of centerfield. They’re the ones who seem to be scoring.

Florida Aquarium biologists suspect two are pregnant. It’s mating season. They have swollen bellies. Two cownoses have already delivered at the aquarium. There’s a nursery tank ready for pups at Tropicana Field.

Start thinking up names.

Maybe “Rocco Ray?”

How about “Cownose Kaz?”

***

The cownoses are sadly cursed with noses that roughly resemble those of cattle, but they otherwise have it pretty good at Tropicana. Their keeper is Nicholas Burch, a recent University of Tampa environmental science grad. He works a 40-hour shift hand-feeding the rays and tending to their other admittedly minimal demands.

Most days, Burch gets there at 7 a.m. He shells shrimp, chops squid. He gives the rays breakfast. He prepares the small trays of fish food sold on game nights to fans for $4.

The fans start showing up two hours before game time. Fifty fans are allowed in every 10 minutes. Each is shown how to slip a piece of shrimp between two fingers and feed it palm up to the cownoses that wait like begging dogs.

Burch figures he gets about 1,000 fans a night. “The last home stand, I started at 5 and finished at 10,” Burch said.

Not much chance of these cownoses getting fat. As migrating fish, they stay in constant motion, circling the tank in a graceful, endless swim, fins slicing the water surface, as if they’re making a run down to Venezuela.

Or could be that those 20 males are in endless hot pursuit.

Burch hasn’t seen them have sex. It’s pretty obvious when they do. Five or six cownose males may pursue one female. There are no alpha males. The male’s genitalia consist of two “claspers” on his back end. One grabs the female by her fin with his mouth, slides under her, and then, you get the picture. He can bat either left or right.

At night, the tank is covered. But they don’t stop moving. No one is sure if cownoses ever sleep. All Burch knows is that each morning, when he takes the cover off, everyone looks happy.

Burch said one of the Florida Aquarium biologists came to a game and noticed that two rays “have enlarged bellies near the tail. That’s what pregnant cownoses look like,” she told Burch.

It so happens the baseball team had planned ahead. One floor down, in a big room where the salt water is filtered, another tank about the size of a hot tub was installed that will serve nicely as a nursery. The pups will stay in it for about a month.

There’s no telling when the Big Day is.

The cownoses could have been pregnant when they were originally caught in Tampa Bay. If so, pups could show up this season. If not, the gestation period for cownose rays is 11 to 12 months.

The cownose rays may make us wait till next year.

Just like the Devil Rays.

John Barry can be reached at 727-892-2258 or jbarry@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 28, 2006, 22:20:51]