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Okay, how many people live on this planet and don’t know that Steve Erwin, one of the most famous tv wildlife personalities on earth was killed after he became to agressive with a stingray? Well, here is one swimmer on Australia’s Gold Coast, who must not have gotten the memo. For unknown reasons, this anonymous stingray heckler lunges at a giant stingray. Perhaps it was for the video camera. Perhaps it was for a facebook status update, or even Instangram fame. But what this would be tarzan quickly found out is that Stingrays don’t take that kind of bully boy bravado sheepishly.
Within seconds, the stingray turns the tables on the human, and has the man on the retreat! The guy looks genuinely scared.
According to Stingray expert Dr. Jonathan Werry, such behavior is rare, but can happen when a stingray feels threatened and can’t easily flee.
“Usually what a ray has is a flight response, because most of whatever is after them is a predator like a large shark, so in most cases they want to get away as quickly as possible,” Werry said.
“It has come at [the swimmer] head-first, but has not whipped its tail around so he is actually giving the guy the message to back off.”
Werry added that only in rare cases–including that which resulted in the death of TV personality Steve Irwin in 1996–do stingray use their barbs as a weapon of attack.
The barbs, rather, are deployed as a means of self defense.
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