{"id":328196,"date":"2026-08-24T09:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T09:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/328196\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T09:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T09:02:10","slug":"oceanic-manta-ray-spotted-off-long-island-coast-in-rare-new-york-sighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/328196\/","title":{"rendered":"Oceanic manta ray spotted off Long Island coast in rare New York sighting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An unusual visitor made a splash off Long Island when an oceanic manta ray was spotted feeding in the waters near\u00a0Jones Beach\u00a0State Park last week.<\/p>\n<p>Video captured shows the massive marine\u00a0animal\u00a0swimming close to shore, bringing attention to a species that is not commonly seen in\u00a0New York\u00a0waters.<\/p>\n<p>According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), these creatures typically call tropical and subtropical seas home.<\/p>\n<p>The department added in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/reel\/1326553039676985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0post regarding the extraordinary sighting that this species can sometimes be spotted in New York waters during the warm\u00a0summer\u00a0months.<\/p>\n<p>Manta rays are filter feeders, using their large mouths to consume significant amounts of zooplankton. <\/p>\n<p>According to the DEC, the rays can also venture into deeper water to search for medium-sized fish.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0oceanic\u00a0manta ray is the largest species of ray in the world and can reach enormous sizes.<\/p>\n<p>Officials with the DEC said these animals can weigh more than 4,000 pounds and live as long as 40 years.<\/p>\n<p>Despite their massive size, these rays aren\u2019t considered a threat to humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unusual visitor made a splash off Long Island when an oceanic manta ray was spotted feeding in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1457,4906,57,9,24,55,54,56,58],"class_list":["post-328196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-animals","tag-jones-beach-state-park","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}