A group of manta rays is most commonly called a “squadron.” The term has no formal scientific origin and isn’t standardized by any zoological authority, but it has become the widely accepted collective noun in English, likely inspired by the way manta rays glide through water in a formation that resembles aircraft in flight. You’ll also occasionally hear “fever,” a term borrowed from stingrays, but squadron is the one that has stuck for mantas specifically. The name turns out to be surprisingly fitting, because manta rays don’t just happen to be near each other: they form groups with real social structure, coordinated movement, and specific purposes.
Why “Squadron” and Not Something Else
English collective nouns for animals are a messy, charming tradition with roots stretching back to medieval hunting terminology. Many are fanciful rather than descriptive: a “murder” of crows, a “parliament” of owls. Squadron falls somewhere in between. Mantas are among the largest rays in the ocean, with wingspans that can exceed six meters in giant oceanic manta rays, and when several of them cruise in loose alignment through open water, the visual parallel to a squadron of planes is hard to miss. The broad, flat bodies banking and turning in formation give the impression of something deliberate and coordinated, which, as researchers have discovered, it often is.
There’s no governing body that officially assigns collective nouns to species, so you won’t find “squadron” in a taxonomic reference. It lives in the same informal-but-understood category as most animal group names. What makes it more than a cute label is how well it captures the actual behavior of these animals. Manta rays are not loners who occasionally bump into each other. They are social animals whose gatherings serve specific biological functions, and the growing research on their group behavior suggests a level of social complexity unusual among fish.
Aggregation Versus Social Grouping
Researchers who study group behavior in sharks and rays draw a distinction between aggregation and social grouping. An aggregation happens when animals end up in the same place because of some external resource, like food or warm water, without any social motivation driving them together. A social group, by contrast, forms because the animals are actively drawn to interact with each other. Manta rays do both, and sometimes an aggregation transitions into something more social as individuals begin coordinating their behavior.1Fish and Fisheries. Social behaviour in sharks and rays: analysis, patterns and implications for conservation
This distinction matters because it changes what “a squadron” actually means depending on context. A dozen manta rays gathered at a plankton bloom might be an aggregation: they’re all there for the food, and if the food moved, they’d disperse independently. But a group of mantas at a cleaning station, returning to the same spot day after day and interacting with familiar individuals, is something closer to a social community. The word “squadron” covers both, but the biology underneath varies considerably.
What Brings Mantas Together
Manta ray gatherings tend to organize around three main activities: feeding, cleaning, and mating. Each creates a different type of group with its own dynamics and size.
Feeding Aggregations
The largest squadrons form around concentrated food sources, particularly dense patches of zooplankton. When conditions are right, manta rays converge in impressive numbers and begin coordinating their feeding in ways that go well beyond simply eating in the same area. Researchers have documented several distinct coordinated feeding strategies: chain feeding, where mantas line up head-to-tail and swim through plankton in single file; piggyback feeding, where one ray stacks above another to exploit different layers of a plankton cloud; and lunge feeding, where individuals accelerate into dense prey patches. Perhaps the most spectacular is cyclone feeding, documented in reef manta rays in the Maldives, where up to 150 individuals swim in a tight anticlockwise circle roughly 15 meters across, creating a vortex in the water column that concentrates plankton. These feeding cyclones can last as long as 60 minutes.2Frontiers in Marine Science. Manta and devil ray aggregations: conservation challenges and developments in the field – Section: 2.1.1 Feeding aggregations
These coordinated strategies show that manta rays in a feeding group are not just passively benefiting from being near food. They are using the positions of other rays to improve their own feeding efficiency, avoid collisions, and take advantage of hydrodynamic effects created by their neighbors. That kind of coordination puts manta feeding groups squarely in the social grouping category, at least once the coordinated behavior kicks in.
Environmental conditions play a strong role in when and where feeding aggregations form. Research at Hanifaru Bay in the Maldives, one of the world’s most famous manta aggregation sites, found that manta ray detections increased with stronger westerly winds during daylight, near new and full moons, just after high tide, and when tidal range was low. The researchers suggested that wind-driven processes help concentrate zooplankton at the surface, essentially setting the table for a mass feeding event.3PubMed Central. Environmental drivers of reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) visitation patterns to key aggregation habitats in the Maldives
Cleaning Stations
Cleaning stations are specific spots on coral reefs where small fish, particularly cleaner wrasses, pick parasites and dead skin off larger visitors. For manta rays, these stations function as something like community hubs. Mantas return to them repeatedly, and the stations serve purposes beyond hygiene: they offer a location for socializing, may improve social learning between individuals, and appear to contribute to foraging efficiency through the relationships formed there. Mantas are selective about which cleaning stations they visit, preferring sites with hard coral substrate and specific species of cleaner wrasse. Researchers believe individual mantas maintain a kind of mental map of quality cleaning stations across their home range.4Frontiers in Marine Science. Eat-clean-repeat: reef manta rays (Mobula alfredi) undertake repetitive feeding-cleaning cycles at an aggregation site in Seychelles
The groups at cleaning stations tend to be smaller than feeding aggregations but more socially meaningful. It’s here that preferred associations between individuals become most apparent, and these regular meetups may be part of what sustains the broader social network within a manta population.
Courtship Trains
Mating-related groups have their own distinctive look. In what researchers call a courtship train, multiple male manta rays pursue a single female at high speed in a dramatic chase that can last for hours. The female leads, executing fast flips, sharp turns, and somersaults, while the males mimic her evasive maneuvers as they try to keep up. This behavior, sometimes called a mating train, appears to be the primary mechanism for female mate choice: the female essentially tests the males’ ability to match her agility and stamina, and copulation is not guaranteed at the end.5Journal of Fish Biology. Courtship and mating behaviour of manta rays Mobula alfredi and M. birostris in the Maldives
Drone surveys of manta ray groups have added another layer to this picture. Males tend to approach and align with females from the left side, which is consistent with findings that the majority of wing scars from male biting during mating attempts appear on the female’s left pectoral fin. This behavioral lateralization, a preference for one side over the other, echoes patterns seen in many other vertebrates and adds evidence that these aren’t random encounters but structured social interactions with predictable patterns.6bioRxiv. Investigating manta ray collective movements via drone surveys
Social Preferences Within the Squadron
One of the more surprising findings about manta ray groups is that they aren’t random assemblages of whoever happens to show up. A study of reef manta ray social networks found that individuals had preferred associations: certain rays spent more time together than expected by chance. These preferences were particularly strong in female-female pairs, mixed-sex pairs, and mixed-maturity groups of adults and juveniles. Male-male associations, on the other hand, showed the opposite pattern. Males didn’t have preferred partnerships with other males and appeared to actively avoid spending time together.7Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Social preferences and network structure in a population of reef manta rays
This finding reshapes what it means to see a group of manta rays. A squadron at a cleaning station or feeding area isn’t a random crowd; it’s a collection of individuals with real social relationships and preferences. Females form the social backbone, maintaining connections with each other and with juveniles, while males circulate more loosely through the network. The structure looks roughly analogous to what you’d see in some social mammals, which is remarkable for an animal most people think of as a solitary ocean drifter.
How Big Can a Squadron Get
Group sizes range enormously depending on what the mantas are doing and where they are. At cleaning stations, groups tend to be small, sometimes just a handful of individuals at a time. At productive feeding sites during peak plankton season, numbers can climb into the dozens or even hundreds. The cyclone feeding events in the Maldives, with up to 150 individuals, represent the upper end of what has been documented for reef manta rays.2Frontiers in Marine Science. Manta and devil ray aggregations: conservation challenges and developments in the field – Section: 2.1.1 Feeding aggregations
Giant oceanic manta rays, the larger of the two manta species, tend to be more solitary and wide-ranging than their reef cousins. Satellite tracking of oceanic mantas off New Zealand showed broad variation in individual movement patterns, with most rays staying within a relatively contained coastal area but some traveling much farther along the coastline.8Royal Society Open Science. Movement ecology and foraging behaviours of oceanic manta rays Mobula birostris in the coastal waters of Aotearoa, New Zealand Their aggregations tend to be smaller and more transient than those of reef mantas, though they still gather at productive feeding areas when conditions align.
A Taxonomic Wrinkle
If you want to be precise about what you’re calling a squadron, the taxonomy has shifted. Manta rays were long classified in their own genus, Manta, separate from the smaller devil rays in the genus Mobula. But a phylogenetic study found that Manta species consistently nested within the Mobula group, making the separate genus unnecessary. As a result, manta rays were formally folded into Mobula: the reef manta ray became Mobula alfredi and the giant oceanic manta ray became Mobula birostris.9Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Phylogeny of the manta and devilrays (Chondrichthyes: mobulidae), with an updated taxonomic arrangement for the family
This means that technically, manta rays are devil rays. The common name “manta ray” persists in everyday language and in most conservation contexts because the name is well-known and useful for public engagement. But scientifically, the broader family of mobulid rays, which includes the smaller devil ray species, forms a single evolutionary group. Several of those smaller devil ray species also form aggregations, sometimes impressively large ones, and they exhibit some of the same coordinated feeding strategies documented in mantas. So while “squadron” is associated specifically with mantas in popular usage, the social and aggregation behaviors it describes extend across the whole family.
Why Aggregation Sites Matter for Conservation
The fact that manta rays gather predictably at specific locations is both good and bad news for their conservation. It’s good because it means protecting a relatively small number of key sites can have an outsized benefit. A study at Palmyra Atoll, a remote marine protected area in the central Pacific, found that no-fishing regulations effectively protected a resident population of reef mantas, supporting the idea that remote reef ecosystems with formal protections are well-suited for safeguarding these animals.10Marine Ecology Progress Series. Reef manta ray habitat use and residency at a remote marine protected area
But aggregation behavior also creates vulnerability. When mantas bunch up at known feeding or cleaning sites, they become easier targets for fisheries. Mobulid rays have biological traits that make them especially fragile in the face of fishing pressure: they reproduce slowly, produce very few offspring, and don’t start breeding until relatively late in life. Targeted fisheries, driven in large part by the global trade in mobulid gill plates used in some traditional medicine markets, represent a serious and growing threat.11Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. Vulnerabilities and fisheries impacts: the uncertain future of manta and devil rays
The challenge is that manta rays don’t respect national borders. Acoustic telemetry tracking of reef mantas in southern Africa found high residency within South Africa’s iSimangaliso Wetland Park, where strict protections and low human activity appear to provide safe harbor. But 90% of individuals detected in neighboring Mozambique were found outside marine protected areas, meaning the same population that’s well-protected in one country is largely unprotected in the next.12Endangered Species Research. Acoustic telemetry reveals cross-border movements and conservation opportunities for reef manta rays Mobula alfredi in southern Africa Effective conservation of manta ray squadrons requires international cooperation, not just individual marine parks.
When Divers Meet the Squadron
Manta ray aggregation sites have become major ecotourism attractions, drawing divers and snorkelers to places like the Maldives, Indonesia’s Raja Ampat, and Mexico’s Revillagigedo Archipelago. This tourism generates significant economic value that can incentivize protection. But it also introduces a potential problem: the same predictability that makes aggregation sites easy to protect also makes them easy to exploit commercially, and too much diver activity can change manta behavior.
Research analyzing hundreds of video-recorded interactions between divers and manta rays across multiple sites in Mexico found that diver behavior varied substantially by location and diving method. At sites where passive observation was the norm, mantas behaved differently than at sites where following was the most common diver behavior. At one site with more active divers, defensive movements became the most frequently observed manta response.13Frontiers in Marine Science. Quantifying the Effects of Diver Interactions on Manta Ray Behavior at Their Aggregation Sites The implication is that how people behave around mantas matters as much as how many people are present, which has practical consequences for the codes of conduct that dive operators adopt at aggregation sites.
For anyone lucky enough to encounter a squadron in the wild, the etiquette is straightforward: stay still, stay low in the water, and let the mantas come to you. Chasing or obstructing their path triggers avoidance behavior that can disrupt feeding, cleaning, or social interactions. Given that these aggregation sites also serve as the social infrastructure for manta populations, keeping them functional and stress-free is not just a matter of good manners. It’s a conservation priority.