Marine biologist Terry Lilley was diving Wednesday with a friend at Koloa Landing on Kaua‘i’s South Shore when he spotted this giant stingray measuring about eight-foot long and carrying an eight-inch poisonous stinger at the tip of its tail. Lilley
Marine biologist Terry Lilley was diving Wednesday with a friend at Koloa Landing on Kaua‘i’s South Shore when he spotted this giant stingray measuring about eight-foot long and carrying an eight-inch poisonous stinger at the tip of its tail. Lilley said he and his friend had to duck so the stingray wouldn’t run into them. ‘This is the same type of ray that killed Steve Irwin from the Crocodile Hunter and they are super rare in Kaua‘i,” Lilley said. “Out of over 1,000 scuba dives I have done on Kaua‘i, this is the first one I have ever seen.’ The curious animal followed both divers for about 10 minutes at waters 30-feet deep. “We had the feeling it was just as amazed to see us divers as we were to see the ray.” Lilley said that looking up at the two mountain peaks rising out of the upper Hanalei River, in the North Shore, it is possible to see the other stingray, or hihimanu, sculpted from the mountains by mother nature.
