Black electric stingray: Incinerates prey with a crushing discharge, destroying all living things around it!

Black electric ray looks like a giant harmless flatcake, but behind the awkward appearance hides a super predator capable of defeating even a shark. All thanks to its unique ability - an electric discharge with a power of 220 volts! You won't be able to charge your phone from the ray, but getting a powerful electric shock is quite easy.

Even without the electric shock, the black ray is a formidable predatory fish. An adult specimen reaches 180 cm in length and weighs up to 90 kg, comparable to a large human. Most predators avoid attacking such a giant - it's too difficult to swallow.

Spotting a ray is not easy. During the day, it buries itself in the sand near the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and at night it travels to depths of up to 800 meters in search of prey. The ray's eyes are small, its vision is weak, but this doesn't hinder it. Black rays hunt like a vacuum cleaner, sucking in prey and swallowing it whole. In their stomachs, researchers have found catfish sharks, salmon weighing 2 kg, and even flounder 37 cm long!

If the victim resists, the ray applies 10-12 electric discharges with a voltage of 200-220 volts and power up to 6 kW. This is direct current, so you can't charge your phone, but it completely stuns small fish within a radius of a couple of meters. The consequences for victims are terrible: muscle spasms, tendon ruptures, bone fractures and even spinal injuries.

If the ray itself becomes prey, it increases the number of discharges to hundreds, scaring away any predators of its size. For humans, the ray is not lethal, but stunning and disorientation at depth can be fatal even for experienced divers.

For this weapon, the ray paid a high price: 1/6 of its body mass is occupied by electric organs. They consist of 500,000 thin plates - modified muscles that accumulate charge. This is an evolutionary upgrade: all muscles contain a bit of bioelectricity for the nervous system to work.

Another unique feature is live birth. Unlike other cartilaginous fish that lay eggs, the black ray's fertilized eggs develop in the female's uterus. The hatched babies feed on reserves from egg sacs. In other fish, intrauterine cannibalism begins at this stage, but black rays solved the problem differently. Their uterus secretes nutritious milk rich in fats and proteins, which the offspring feed on for several months. By the time of birth, they are already 25-centimeter fish capable of biting and producing electric shocks like adults.

The disadvantage of this process is a year-long pregnancy, which means the population recovers slowly. However, rays are currently safe: they are not of commercial interest, and their habitat is extensive and resistant to destruction.