Manta Ray
Manta birostris
Status: Vulnerable Many rays are vulnerable or endangered because they have relatively long lives with few offspring and cannot recover easily when populations are impacted. They are under pressure from commercial and recreational fishing, pollution, and habitat alteration.
Maori lore:
The Maori god who holds sovereignty over the Sea and all that dwell within the cerulean depths is Tangaroa, and he has a son named Punga. Punga is the god of ugliness and of the ugly creatures of the world. All of the scaled, creeping, crawling, deformed, and slimy creatures of nature are his descendants: the scaled lizards, the deep sea fish, and invertebrates, the strange and the inscrutable.
Punga had two sons. T?-te-wehiwehi made his home on the land and under the arching boughs of the trees to become ancestor of many terrestrial reptiles and insects. His brother, Ikatere, went to the ocean to become ancestor for sharks, rays, and the aquatic beasts.
References:
Best, Eldson. (1899). "Notes on Maori Mythology." Journal of the Polynesian Society 8.
Shortland, Edward. (1882). Maori Religion and Mythology. London: Longmans Green.
Tregear, Edward. (1891). Maori-Polynesian comparative Dictionary. Wellington: Government Printer.