Meet the scientist on a mission to save Florida's rays.

The first time Jessica Pate swam beside a manta ray off Florida's southern coast, the 2.5-meter-wide fish flipped belly-up and slowed to watch her. "I was kind of obsessed after that", Pate says. In 2018, a diver sent Pate a photo of a manta that turned out to be a sickle- fin devil ray (M. tarapacana) - the first confirmed sighting of this species in the western Atlantic Ocean. Marine biologist Jessica Pate swims alongside an oceanic manta ray. [Extracted from the article]