An ancient ocean mystery has been solved using drones to capture slow-motion footage off the coast of Queensland.
Eagle rays are similar in appearance to bottom-dwelling stingrays, but they are known to move quickly through the open water.
Sometimes they’ll even spectacularly breach the surface, flapping their pectoral fins like a bird up to three metres in the air, but until now, scientists didn’t know why.
A new investigation by James Cook University has found that one of the main drivers for these erratic bursts was to escape hammerhead sharks.
In others, there were simply schools of fish in the area that appeared to irritate them.
Spectacular videos collected by its marine biologists clearly show they’re not alone in the water before the jumps.
Incredible reasons why marine creatures breach
Published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research, the researchers note such behaviour is likely “energetically expensive”, and so they suspected it must serve an important function.
Prior to the study, the scientists examined research on dolphin and whale breaches, which are used for parasite removal, feeding, social cues, and, like the eagle rays, predator avoidance.
They noted white sharks breached for another reason – primarily to attack prey – while basking sharks likely do it for courtship.
To reach their conclusions, the team collected 11 videos of eagle rays breaching between June 2024 and January 2025, along with four additional instances captured by members of the public.
In eight of the observations, other fish made contact with the eagle ray or moved above it.
And in the majority of cases, remoras were involved — a species known to cling to and irritate larger fish.
In four instances, the eagle rays were being pursued by great hammerheads, and the breach occurred after the shark “executed rapid burst swimming and successive tight turns”.
The eagle ray would respond with evasive swimming before ultimately leaving the water.
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