It has somehow been over two weeks since my last blog entry…(which is mainly due to the fact that I was essentially offline almost completely for 10 days).

Anyway, I am behind a bit on some planned posts but, before getting to those, I’ll post this afternoon’s Tokyo oddity.

A few months ago, I happened to see this video on Japan Probe:

I live not far from Tsukishima, so I was thinking it would be cool to see a stingray in the canals surrounding my building. Well, today we saw THREE!

We were on the balcony looking down at some people fishing in the canal (god knows why anyone fishes in such murky, filthy water, but I think it is mostly just for relaxation; although, come to think of it, it could be to catch stingrays for miso soup…LOL).

Anyway, we simultaneously spotted something roundish in shape and brown. I grabbed the binoculars, but, because they are arguably the world’s worst pair of binoculars, I was only able to confirm that it looked kind-of-sort-of like a stingray. I decided to then slap my giant Sigma 150-500mm lens on my camera and see if I could get a better look and, indeed, I did:

Unfortunately, the photos are not very good because I was shooting from 30 stories up into murky water with the sun shining on it. I will, however, be on the lookout for a chance to get a better shot – there’s an area of the canal that is quite clear and shallow at certain times of the day.

According to the video above, the type of stingray is a Red Stingray (Dasyatis akajei or 赤えい in Japanese).

Here is more than you’ve probably ever wanted to know about Red Stingrays from ARKIVE:

The red stingray is a top predator in its ocean bottom habitat, feeding mainly on crustaceans and small fish, and also taking various worms and molluscs. However, very little is known about the life history of this species. Male red stingrays are thought to reach sexual maturity at a disc width of around 35 centimetres, and females between 50 and 55 centimetres. Interestingly, at maturity the male and female develop markedly different teeth, with those of the female being virtually flat, and those of the male developing pointed cusps. No large differences in diet have been detected, and it is thought that the differences in the teeth are related to mating behaviour, with the male using the teeth to grip onto the female’s pectoral fins during copulation.

Like other stingrays, the red stingray is likely to be ovoviviparous, a method of reproduction in which the eggs develop and hatch inside the female and are born live . In most stingrays, litter size ranges from two to six young, born after a long gestation period of up to twelve months. However, the red stingray may have smaller litter sizes than most, reportedly giving birth to just one pup per litter.