The Ester Project

Overview

Objectives/Goals If a young stingray with a birth defect is introduced to her own kind at a late age, will she accept the other Cownose rays? Methods/Materials We took a slightly deformed stingray and introduced her to four other cownoses. We did this staggered throughout a period of about 3 monthes for a total of 480 mintues per day. 4 cownose stingays (2 male, 2 female), pH balancer, pH pool, Introduction pool, Ester (slightly deformed stingray), Ester' pool. Results Even though there wasn#t a whole lot of schooling between December 11-19, Ester all of the sudden rapidly progressed on the 20th by schooling 150 minutes all together! Ester showed major improvement on December 20thbut then seemed to drop the minutes schooling the next trial. This pattern didn#t happen just once, though. Whenever she rapidly increased her total schooling minutes, she dropped minutes the next trial. If I could do anything differently I would do the experiment when Ester was older because she did not going through the growth spurt most young stingrays have at 6 months of age. Which ultimately means she can#t be move into the main exhibit with the other 15 Cownose rays, because she is too small compared to them. Conclusions/Discussion In conclusion, my hypothesis was supported. Although she was still not schooling with the other Cownose rays permanently at a week, there was a clear improvement; as shown in my graph. The deformity didn#t affect her in any way when she was introduced. If a young stingray with a birth defect is introduced to the same species at a later age than most young Cownoses, her age will be a larger factor than the birth defect.

Competition history

• CSEF 2013 Zoology · Entry J2202

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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