According to photographer Tara Renaud; “Under the stingray tank at Sea World, you can experience the feeling of being surrounded underwater by hundreds of “happy” and beautiful stingrays.”
STING-HANCE!
Photo by Tara Renauld, sent in by Marilyn T. over at the National Geographic Intelligent Traveler. National Geographic Daily Dozen edited by Susan W.
ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch!
They look like smiling kites!
Oh look, it’s Sting, performing live at the MonteRay jazz festival. Must be a fluke.
What a cool pic!
I love how it looks like they have tiny back legs.
They really are gentle creatures. I was in Sting Ray City down in Grand Cayman and you can feed them in the shallow waters. Their mowfs feel like rubbery marbles as they tickle your fingers. Very squeeeeeeeful. Love all the rays….
Float, float. (flutter, flutter.) float. float. Floatrr McFloaterson.. (float, float) (floof and flutter) (flutter. floof. flutter. flufernoogenstein) Oye! The water and the flufferheigenstatsandhamsterandfloofandsttuffandfloofandfloofandthingswhicharefluffyandsoftandfluff)
lol they has dimples. And thanks, earlybird1, I didn’t notice their hind legs.
260Oakley, there ought to be some kind of face-in-palms statuette on your mantelpiece.
Much friendlier than your average flying monkey.
@Patito Gigante
Are you referring to the Palme D’Oh I picked up at Cannes this year?
Hover rays go, “Lah lah laaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.”
You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay. . .
Love the stingbabies! I pet them in an aquarium a few years ago and they’re the softest things I’ve ever touched. Adore.
I am not worthy of the company here on CO.
I miss Steve Irwin…!
They look like kites.
OMG, Peeps, you are all EN FUEGO!!!
cuties….funny how the weirdest of creatures can be adorable.
i spends all day on CO.
The only problem I have with swimming with these guys is you have to put on a bathing suit. I refuse to be resposible for changing all those cute smiles to looks of terror!
@260Oakley… I bow, humbly, in your direction oh Queen, uh, King, uh, Quing of puns…
I’m hearing Ride of the Valkyries in my head !!!
I love the smiles of stingrays in the morning (afternoon or evenings ) !!!
Duh da da daa duh …….
How cool is that!! They do look like kites with smiley faces. And braids.
They were just trying to give Steve Irwin an injection of Happy!
@Rachael: I didn’t even notice the braids! Squeeeeee!
@Mud Bug, you were perfectly right. The house band is the Royal Opera House Orchestra.
Oog, now I have this earworm: Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit!” (as sung by Elmer Fudd)!
[Yes, magic helmet! And now I give you a SAMMMMMMM...pul... - Ed.]
Aww, I love rays, and now I know they love me too!
@ Theresa Great video ! Now THAT’S the way to wake up to” heavy metal” !!!
I watched the video & by the time it ended I was ready to invade some place !
(ANY place) ;oD
“Palme D’Oh” …
@260Oakley, my jaw is agape in awe. My palm is firmly attached to forehead. I have no words. (other than… D’OH!). We are in the presence of Greatness.
I thought those WERE the vinyl stingray kites we used to have as kids.
They seem to be humming, perhaps a Disney style chorus.
“O Bwoonhilde, you are so wovewy!”
Theresa- Hilde as in “On The Town” “Tobbacco Road? stick with me and I’ll show you the road to ruin, come back to my place”
umm – those aren’t legs….
Don’t they look just like kites ??
At first I thought the conductor was chewing gum, and then I realized he was saying, “Bomp bomp bomp BOMP bomp” in time with the music, which is kind of awesome. And dang. As someone who really can’t sing, I admire the stuffin’s out of people who can sing.
Noelegy, if you want to see eight of the most accomplished musicians in the world desperately counting like mad for for dear life:
The pianists are Evgeni Kissin, Lang Lang, Emanuel Ax, Leif Ove Andsnes, Claude Frank, Mikhail Pletnev, Staffan Scheja, and James Levine, if that means anything to anyone. Katrina?
[I grew up with classical-music enthusiast parents, and I recognize only two - Emanuel Ax and James Levine (who I've never thought of as a pianist, but there you are) - Ed.]
Theresa – I’ve heard of them all, execept Claude Frank and Stafan Scheja. I’ve seen
Evgeni Kissin at The Proms, he did one encore, which is fairly usual at a concert and we got up and left, as we got to the bottom of the stairs there was a monitor and he was playing another and another and another. I later found out he is well known for doing this, anyhoo it was a stinking hot afternoon and I had a hangover.
Theo – I am finding the video links no longer appear with the ‘play’ > and I can’t watchem. Help/guidence please.
[Sorry, can't even see the problem from here.
- Ed.]
The Proms is always stinking hot, or they used to be, anyway. Tom Allen famously passed out in the middle of “Carmina Burana” thirty or so years ago. 80
When Rudolph Serkin made his Carnegie Hall debut a gazillion years ago, he came out for an encore, sat down, and played the whole Goldberg Variations. 80
I always forget how to do that!
At the Virginia Marine Science Museum in Virginia Beach, they have a skate “petting tank”… they are sooo gentle, and swim up to be touched. They feel like wet silk under your fingertips.
They are smiling bc they just stung someone!
love love these
Theresa – “thirty or so years ago” you’ve made me feel suddenly very old, the incedent is fairly fresh in my memory, because an audience member got up and finished the part.
Sadly for him it didn’t result in instant fame and fortune.
Cute, but I just finished this book, so also terrifying.
http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Selection-Dave-Freedman/dp/1401302092
Theo, the pianists fall into a few categories as follows:
Grey-haired men with glasses:
James Levine, Manny Ax, Steffan Scheja
Grey-haired, without glasses:
Claude Frank
Blond, with glasses:
Pletnev
Blond, without glasses:
Andsnes
Dark-haired, younger, without glasses:
Kissen
Chinese guy in bright blue jacket:
Lang Lang.
Ya can’t tell yer players without a scorecard.
Hon Glad, IMHO, Tom Allen is not that easily replaced.
This is adorable and all of my favorite colors! I would love a high-res version for a desktop or a print or both!
Theresa: That was GORGEOUS! I’d never heard something like this, classical music arranged for multiple pianos all at once. I took piano lessons as a kid, always wished I’d kept up with them. A very few times, I’ve had the privilege to play on a grand piano. I still own a piano, but it’s a very out-of-tune specimen.
@Noelegy, there is a sizable four-hand piano repertory– sixteen hands, not so much.
Theresa – Tom Allen ? Mayhap thoust means Sir Thomas Allen. You over familiar American type person
There’s a huff coming and I am going off in it.
OK, OK, Sir Thomas, but it is hard to think of someone as “Sir Thomas” when you once sat and watched him in “La Boheme” and said to yourself, “Those are the tightest pants I have ever seen in my life.”
PS He could call me “Cookie” if he wanted.
PPS I know I can always be relied upon to raise the tone around here.
About 30 years ago, I was stung in the foot by a stingray, which led to a trip to the ER. ouchie. I still think they’re adorable, and the stingray feeding pool is the first place I go at seaworld – even before the dolphins.
“Ohhhhhhhhhh, let’s name the species, the species, the species. Let’s name the species that live in the seeeeeeeea.”