{"id":151983,"date":"2026-02-11T19:49:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/151983\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:49:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:49:17","slug":"fever-of-cownose-rays-gathers-in-old-tampa-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/151983\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Fever&#8217; of cownose rays gathers in Old Tampa Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It was a beautiful sight to see when a &#8220;fever&#8221; of cownose rays was seen &#8220;moo-ving&#8221; around in Old Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pinellas County environmental scientists spotted the group of rays during a routine water quality sampling Tuesday, when they captured video of dozens of them gathered together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The term &#8220;fever&#8221; is used to describe the rays&#8217; behavior in flocking together in warm, shallow waters when they are ready for breeding or migrating, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/reef-world.org\/blog\/collective-nouns#:~:text=A%2520%25E2%2580%259Cfever%25E2%2580%259D%2520of%2520stingrays&amp;text=Although%2520they%2520generally%2520like%2520to,reach%2520a%2520whopping%2520ten%2520thousand.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Reef World Foundation;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Reef World Foundation<\/a>. It is called that because their collective movements resemble a person shivering with a high fever.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pinellas County officials also said the rays could also have been searching for feeding grounds, and are possibly attracted to warm water discharged from nearby power plants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The cownose ray is not a true &#8220;stingray,&#8221; but instead a species of eagle ray.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Eagle rays are open-water swimmers with pointed, wing-like fins, whereas stingrays are closer to the bottom of the sea and are diamond-shaped, based on findings from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scuba.com\/blog\/meet-the-rays-types-of-stingrays-eagle-rays-and-manta-rays\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Scuba.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Scuba.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a beautiful sight to see when a &#8220;fever&#8221; of cownose rays was seen &#8220;moo-ving&#8221; around in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[73307,73308,596,23181,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-151983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-cownose-ray","tag-eagle-ray","tag-pinellas-county","tag-rays","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}