Location: F10 - Arium Major
Tags: Exploration
--Weekly Explorer's Transmission--
--Log of Eagle-Eye Silver--
-- 21 Junali 3815--
I need to buy the Octan Corp. engineers a case of good stuff! The underwater robots they send to help us explore Sector F10 have been invaluable—especially since the large equatorial ocean of Arium Major supports some extremely large predators! The Vampire Ray is one of the largest apex predators, and apparently one of the most common. Our Octan Corp. submersible drones recorded many predation events in which a Vampire Ray attacked and consumed large (for Earth) sharks and whales. Attached to this report is a still image of one of these attacks. For scale, the shark in the picture is approximately 3 meters long, meaning that the ray here has a wingspan of roughly 5 meters. The teeth are equally enormous, they’re probably about 50cm long and are robust. These rays tend to shake their prey after biting down, so the teeth’s strength is clearly important. There is a group of spines near the base of the tail but we have not seen them used to aid in hunting. It’s unknown if these barbs are poisoned like in the terrestrial stingrays. I highly recommend that any human-piloted vessels sent to Arium Major be significantly armored against bites from the underwater creatures here. Frankly, I wouldn’t go into the water without some pretty big guns on a fast sub with hefty armor, once again, I’m glad we have the drones here! Eagle-Eye out.
--End--
A couple more angles on Flickr, C&C appreciated!