mantas, megafauna & macro

Find out more about our most famous residents!

The Komodo National Park boasts a resident population of over 1,230 mantas (so far!). We are lucky enough to see reef manta rays all year round at dive sites that are suitable for all levels of diver

There is a whole host of megafauna that makes an appearance in the Komodo National Park! From regular shark sightings to the elusive dugong. Every dive there is the chance to see something special!

From blue ringed octopus to wunderpus, rare nudibranch to coleman shrimp, mandaring fish to pygmy seahorses - we have a amazing range of macro life here in the park all year round

These beautiful and majestic rays are one of the many reasons the diving in Komodo is so special. If you’ve never seen a manta ray before you’ll never forget your first dive with one. Even if you’ve seen hundreds of them before, you can never get bored of the gorgeous and playful creatures. We love that we get to dive with these gorgeous rays all year round. The sites we see them at most frequently are Mawan and Karang Makassar which are in the centre of the park. Both of these dive sites are perfect for all levels of diver and snorkeler!

In 2017 our beloved Manta Rays were actually reclassified as Mobulid Rays, meaning the two species are officially called Mobulid Alfredi and Mobulid Birostris. Here in the Komodo National Park we predominantly see the Mobulid (Manta...they’ll always be mantas) Alfredi. These grow up to 5m in wing span, are filter feeders and tend to have home ranges - this means we have some regulars in the park! Scuba Junkie Komodo even has their own adopted manta called ‘Gizmo’!

Manta Seasons and Conditions

Manta Rays are spotted in the park all year round! October - March is when we tend to see them in larger numbers, especially in the centre of the park. We will see lots of cleaning and feeding behaviour and in February & March we are sometimes lucky enough to see mating trains!

From March - October, as the waters get warmer and the visibility increases we tend to start seeing more juvenile manta rays up in the north of the park - especially in July & August! These shiny looking manta rays are always a treat to see! We always aim to get our divers to at least one of the manta dive sites during their stay! Both Mawan and Karang Makassar are suitable for all levels of diver and snorkeler and are accessible throughout the year!

dive sites

manta research and citizen science

So far in Komodo there have been over 1,200 individual mantas that have been identified. What do we mean when we say identified? Well it means that someone has been able to take a photo of the sport pattern on their belly. This pattern is like a fingerprint - unique to each individual manta ray! The smart people over at the Marine Megafauna Foundation and MantaMatcher.org have found a way to collate this information and recognise the patterns. They can tell if a manta has been seen before, where it has been seen before and what behaviour it was exhibiting at the time!

Anyone can help contribute to this research! If you are lucky enough to snap a shot of a manta rays bells then our staff will help you upload the photo to Manta Matcher who will give you an update of if that individual has been seen before or not. This research is essential is understand manta ray patterns and behaviours. It is through this research it was found that some manta rays - known as the jetsetters - travel between Nusa Penida and Komodo. Such information can assist in enforcing better protection of these majestic giants.

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manta behaviour

cleaning

Mawan and Karang Makassar are both filled with cleaning stations. A cleaning station is an area of corals or a coral bommie that are home to certain fish species that will clean manta rays. The manta rays will swoop in around the area as the fish nibble off any parasite and clean and wounds. Manta can clean for up to 8 hours a day and as they are very sociable creatures there will often be more than one manta ray on a cleaning station! As they are negatively buoyant they must always be swimming, otherwise they will sink.

feeding

At Karang Makassar we often see a lot of feeding behaviour. Manta rays tend to feed close to the surface, which is where they will find the most plankton. Manta rays are filter feeders, so they will cruise along the surface of the water with their mouth wide open, filtering out all their delicious food from the water. They have also been observed to ‘barrel roll’ when they feed. This means they’ve found an area that is thick with plankton and rather than swimming back and forth through it, they will roll through this patch - like a loop-the-loop- with their mouths wide open. As mantas are very social, we’ll often see aggregations of manta rays feeding together!

mating

Although we are yet to see the actual mating process happen during a dive here - something that lasts less than a minute - we often see the ritual leading up to the mating. Before a female will mate with a male he must show his worth! The female will swim through the water, looping and swooping and the males must keep up with her. Sometimes she is followed by 2 or 3, sometimes she is followed by 10! The male who can keep up is the lucky one.

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megafauna

sharks & rays

Manta rays may be a firm favourite, but we are lucky enough to see a whole range of megafauna in Komodo! The Komodo National Park is home to a whole host of elasmobranchs! Sharks species we see are white tip, black tip and grey reef sharks, bamboo sharks and the very occasional whale shark! As well as the manta rays we also see devil rays, whip tail rays, marble rays, sting rays and occasionally schools of hundreds of cownose rays! When it comes to these elasmobranchs there is no real season and they can be spotted through out the year.

turtles

We predominantly see Hawksbill turtles and green turtles in the Komodo National Park, these species are listed as critically endangered and endangered respectively on the IUCN red list. Diver and snorkelers will spots turtles pretty much daily, we even spot them from the boat on the way our to dive sites or when relaxing during a surface interval. There is no season for turtles, we see them all year round!

dugongs

The shy and elusive dugong is top of the list for many divers to see! Known affectionately as a ‘sea cow’ because they love to chomp on the sea grass, these shy creatures can move a lot faster than you would think and are usually hanging out in very shallow water. We tend to see more of them during February - March and August - September, but they have been spotted throughout the year.

diving packages

macro

Komodo may be famous for currents and manta rays, but the waters here hold so much more life than you could ever imagine! The term ‘macro’ comes from the lens photographers must use to take photos of small and bizarre looking creatures. When we refer to macro diving we are talking about dives where to focus is mainly to find small, rare and elusive critters - which we have a plethora of in Komodo! Generally when looking for these smaller critters we’ll head to sites that have more of a sandy bottom than a coral reef.

Dive sites such as Wainilu, Gindang and Siaba Besar are a macro lovers paradise. They may not be immediately pretty like so many of the other dive sites in the park, but the life that you find there will make you feel like you’re on another planet. The dive sites tend to have very relaxed conditions, making it easy to slow down and search amongst the soft corals and sand, embracing the treasure hunt theme of the dive.

some macro favourites

The blue-ringed octopus - These tiny but beautiful octopus are usually easily identifiable by their iridescent blue rings - however like all octopus they can change the colour and texture of their skin, so sometimes they will appear to be just a light sandy colour. They get no bigger than 10 centimetres in length and are tricky to spot hidden amongst the rubble.

They are tricky to find, but they are most commonly seen at Gindang, Wainilu, Siaba Besar and Karang Makassar (if you can tear your eyes away from the mantas!)

wunderpus

Bizarre and stealthy, the Wunderpus is a funky looking octopus that can be seen skimming across the sand! Often mistaken for a mimic octopus - that is just as cool and just as rare - this red and white striped cephalopod likes to hide in the sand with just it’s eyes poking out. It is a treat to see when it does display it’s fully body and is a photographers dream! Which explains it’s full name of ‘Wunderpus Photogenicus’. It was only recognised by scientists in 2006!

Our eagle eyes guides can spot the wunderpus on Gindang, Wainilu and Siaba Besar

nudibranchs

Whether you’ve got 5 dives or 500 divers, we’re yet to meet a diver who doesn’t love nudibranchs! These colours critters comes in all shapes and sizes and we see a huge variety of them in the park at all the dive sites. They get their fantastic colours from the sponges that they eat and their colours also act as a deterrent to predators.

There are so many incredible species that we can discover whilst diving in the Komodo National Park, keep and eye on our social media accounts for what we’ve been spotting!

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mantas, megafauna & macro

Find out more about our most famous residents!