The Dive Ocean Makunudu team and guests recently had an astonishing encounter at Hembadhoo Wreck.

We had the chance to observe a guitar ray. We have seen it before but the last time it disappeared almost faster than we were able to give our special guitar ray hand signal! This time it didn’t consider us a threat anymore and waited patiently, having a relaxing rest on the sandy bottom close to the wreck. Joerg took the chance to capture some pictures as proof.

Little is known so far about this very rare and very special ray. The guitar ray was and still is often mistaken to be a shark. You recognize them by their elongated body with flattened head and small ray like fins whilst the tail resembles characteristics of sharks. It is characteristically ray-like in its habits of staying close to the bottom, but it is more shark-like when swimming. Guitar rays can grow up to a length of 3m and gain a weight of more than 200kg. They are bottom feeders with their preferred food to be crustaceans, mollusks, worms and eventually small fish.

It is not known to exhibit aggressive behavior towards divers. They are suspected to be seasonal territorial but this isn’t proved so far.