This week in Lembongan… It’s just the cycle of life, as mantas dance in their trains trying to impress the leading female as she ducks, dives, barrel rolls and dances her way to picking the perfect mate.

The last week divers have had some breathtakingly amazing experiences at Manta Point with sightings of 10+ mantas and even the luck ones have seen multiple mating trains. Bryce was there for one of these moments and found himself and Lillian, from the Aquatic Alliance manta research team, right in the middle of one of these manta trains. Not only were the manta rays ducking, diving, barrel rolling and dancing around with each other but both Bryce and Lillian had to duck, dive, barrel roll and dance to dodge the mantas as they glided only centimeters passed the two. The mantas were not even bothered that Lillian was filming there ‘business’.

The dive collected important information for Aquatic Alliance. We were able to collect new perfect ID photos of mantas which were yet to have one and they may have even found a manta that has not been identified in the area before.

Courtship is difficult to observe although mating “trains” with multiple individuals swimming closely behind each other are sometimes seen at Manta Point. The mating sequence is initiated by a male following closely behind a female. He makes repeated efforts to grasp her pectoral fin with his mouth. Once he has a tight grip, he turns upside-down and it beings!