Originally posted by TexasRealtor:
Stingrays are friendly, if they are accustomed to people.
Like this one on my back in the Caymans...



But piss them off or scare them and they WILL stick you; I used to skin-dive the flats in the FL Keys quite a bit and since rays like to bury themselves in the sand, it's almost impossible to know if you are near one until it takes off or you step on it. I've run into plenty of rays (mostly small ones no bigger than garbage-can lid sized, but a few "big" ones here and there) and I never found one that was innately aggressive over a decade and a half of diving and ocean kayaking in the Keys. The only one I can recall that I manged to piss off was a rather large one that me and two others kept chasing down via kayaks off of Bahia Honda. We did manage to circle it and it started whipping it's tail above the water-line at that point, which had us beating one Hell of a quick exit away from the sucker...

Him and his crew must have cornered it or he must have accidentally stepped on it or grabbed it somehow. I can't count the number of times I heard the typical tourist "scare" story of someone in the shallows crawling around and putting their hands on something squishy and then getting spiked in the chest or leg.

Sad, but not entirely unexpected if he was behaving like he normally did with crocs and other animals. Tragic, regardless of the circumstances, though.

JaTo e-Tough Guy Missouri City, TX 99 Contour SVT #143/2760 00 Corvette Coupe