The Etpison Museum, with NECO Marine as one of the sponsors, builds a database called www.mantaidpalau.org to collect information on Palau's individual mantas and shares what is learned from observing and photographing them in Palau for the last 25 years. Recently, this database has been updated with all the newly identified mantas. Now, Manta ID Palau has over 200 mantas properly photographed and identified, 16 of which are Black Mantas. The last additions were Pumpkin, Tiki (2 females) and Scorpio (Male), from last November.

One of the new features of the website is the new section: "German Channel favorites" where the most popular mantas in German Channel are shown. They also encourage divers to share their photographs of mantas not shown on the database.

If you would like to learn how to identify the mantas and to position yourself under water so not to scare them away. NECO Marine has a PADI dive specialty course: “Manta Identification Diver Palau”, a two day course where you can find out more about Palau’s manta rays and how to observe them best.

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