Credit: Getty Images A fleet of drone vessels that autonomously scans the seafloor using multi-beam sonars, or aerial platforms bouncing sonar signals off submerged objects might contribute to a greater understanding of what lies beneath, but an armada of rays equipped with ultrasonic hardware could be enlisted to fortify the effort. "Electric rays and stingrays are benthic animals, meaning that they spend most of their time swimming around the ocean floor in deep places," explains lead study author Yo Tanaka, from the Japanese scientific institute Riken. "By combining simple pinger technology and digital cameras with this natural behavior, we think we can use rays to map the ocean floor, and at the same time collect meaningful data about ocean wildlife, biota, and resources."