How to Use manta in a Sentence

manta

noun
  • Why mantas and related rays have such long tails has long been a mystery.
    — Jack Tamisiea, New York Times, 22 Jan. 2025
  • Reef mantas have patterns of unique belly spots that stay the same throughout their lives.
    — Jake Buehler, National Geographic, 27 Aug. 2019
  • Gills absorb oxygen from the water that gushes out so the manta can breathe.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 31 Dec. 2024
  • The City of Meriens follows the form and function of a manta ray.
    — Joe Quirk, CNN, 29 May 2017
  • That’s mostly because of the reef manta's massive size; an adult can easily weigh more than a ton.
    — National Geographic, 11 Feb. 2020
  • Visitors can view the stars through telescopes on Mounakea or go for a manta ray night dive off the Kona coast.
    — Kathy Henderson / Special To The Pioneer Press, Twin Cities, 2 Mar. 2017
  • While most stingray species reside near the seafloor, mantas and other rays in the myliobatid order spend most of their time in open water.
    — Jack Tamisiea, New York Times, 22 Jan. 2025
  • Microplastics gathered by a manta trawl in the Sargasso Sea are placed on a map of the area.
    — Shailene Woodley, Time, 4 Sep. 2019
  • The new manta-robot has a body made of silicone and flexible wings that move exactly like those of a manta ray.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 31 Dec. 2024
  • Over the years, the sea passages between the islands have seen wave and tidal machines that bring to mind steel manta rays and undulating sea snakes.
    — Washington Post, 9 Nov. 2021
  • The mantas are still spotted in May and October, but in fewer numbers.
    — Taylor McIntyre, Travel + Leisure, 5 Oct. 2025
  • That muddied patch of manta cloth, the product of sudden flooding, might put you in the mind of the hazy color blocks of Mark Rothko.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 29 Aug. 2019
  • At the bottom of either side of a manta’s mouth are structures known as mouthplates, which look something like a dashboard air conditioner.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 31 Dec. 2024
  • Divers can expect to explore underwater cliffs and walls teeming with mantas, tuna, and various species of sharks.
    — Jessica Chapel, Condé Nast Traveler, 10 June 2025
  • The manta are assembled in foil trays and baked until the middle is just cooked and still juicy, the tops are crisp around the edges and the bottoms resemble al dente pasta.
    — Jenn Harriscolumnist, Los Angeles Times, 7 Nov. 2022
  • Off the side of the Esperanza, the manta trawl lazily gobbles up water samples from the ocean's surface that are filtered through its long mesh tail.
    — Arwa Damon, CNN, 19 Aug. 2019
  • And although stingray tails have a fearsome reputation for deadly stings, manta tails lack defensive spines entirely.
    — Jack Tamisiea, New York Times, 22 Jan. 2025
  • The wrappers for the manta dumplings, whether beef or a combination of beef and pumpkin, are fragile things, prone to split open to reveal their jumbled interiors.
    — Tim Carman, Washington Post, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Thanks to the manta ray and whale shark populations nearby, the address has developed a reputation for its diving classes and tours.
    — Kate Springer, CNN, 14 May 2017
  • And one day a vision worthy of the series’ soulful glimpses of oceanic life materialized directly below me in the form of a giant manta ray.
    — Sue Wunder, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 June 2017
  • Just a few days after videoing his clients catching cobia that were running with manta rays, Maciasz happened upon whale sharks that were mixed in with schools of tuna.
    — Todd Masson, NOLA.com, 24 May 2017
  • Cobia are legendarily tasty fish that cling to any type of structure, like oil platforms, gas wells, sargassum and, apparently, manta rays.
    — Todd Masson, NOLA.com, 17 May 2017
  • While population numbers for giant manta rays are hard to come by, a related species, the reef manta, which until a decade ago was seen as the same species, has decreased by 90 percent in the last decade.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 19 June 2018
  • While the smaller reef manta has an impressive wingspan of about 11 feet wide on average, the giant oceanic manta ray—the largest species of ray—can have a wingspan of up to 29 feet.
    — National Geographic, 26 Aug. 2019
  • Even so, Stevens thinks the manta’s atypical color shouldn’t impact its survival or vulnerability to predation.
    — National Geographic, 11 Feb. 2020
  • Pate's group has identified 125 individual manta rays across a study area that runs from Stuart to Fort Lauderdale.
    — Arkansas Online, 27 Feb. 2022
  • There is also genetic evidence, to be published in a forthcoming paper, that the Florida manta rays belong to a third, new species of manta ray, Pate adds.
    — Bethany Augliere, National Geographic, 3 Sep. 2020
  • Now, researchers at the National University of Singapore have created a robot that mimics the manta.
    — Denise Chow /, NBC News, 8 Dec. 2017
  • Stewart, a graduate student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who has studied mantas around the world, had only seen one or two juveniles in his studies.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 19 June 2018
  • German Channel is a famed site for reliable manta sightings, and Ulong Channel has gorgeous walls of lettuce corals lining a sandy channel and a conveyor belt of marine life passing through.
    — Terry Ward, AFAR Media, 11 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'manta.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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