Hello Fish: Discovering Daringyan

2022 already has some positive aspects (noting I am writing this in December 2021). The new magazine has a lot of potential and 'Hello Fish' will continue to be a feature.

In other good news, a new dive shop has opened in Wollongong to cater for those who want to say hello to the fish via snorkelling or scuba diving.

It’s called Dive Near Me and is located at the top of Auburn Street (www.divenearme.com.au). The proprietor, Awie Thomas, brings a lot of international experience to the Illawarra, having been involved in the industry in South Africa, India and Myanmar. The shop will offer fills, gear, dive gossip and training, the latter provided by long-term Wollongong resident, Donna Rainer.

Last Thursday afternoon I stood on the headland at Stanny and noticed a large black stingray cruising the shallows. On Friday morning I went for a snorkel up to the Pinnacles (northern end of Stanwell Park beach) and noticed a large black stingray resting up against a rock shelf and figured it was the same one.

Separately I was having a look at the website of Food Fairness Illawarra and got interested in the D’harawal seasonal calendar (foodfairnessillawarra.org.au/gooraymurrai), noting the characterisation of this season as a period of storms and heavy rain. I got distracted by the D’harawal dictionary and idly checked to see if there was a word for stingray. Not only was the word – Daringyan – listed but the Latin species name Dasyatis thetidis (now not used as its new scientific name is Bathytoshia lata) connected me to my friend from the beach.

Daringyan can grow very large, weighing over 200kg and measuring 1.8m across and 4m from nose to tail. The females produce sixt to eight pups, which are born after they use up the egg yolk inside the mother, but they are also sustained by a form of uterine milk.

They feed on crustaceans, worms and fish.

Daringyan are uncommon but well known to divers, snorkellers and spearos. They like a free feed and hang around boat ramps and one snaffled a fish from under my float at Bellambi a few months ago. They can be overly curious and intimidating if they smell food and have a very large spike on the tail.

However, they can get very used to people and visitors to Bendalong camping ground may well have interacted quite happily with them in the shallows.

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