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Stingrays are bottomfish, and have strong teeth which they use to crush shellfish. In areas where stingrays are common you may see large craters in the bottom, caused by their feeding activities. Perhaps the most common stingrays in Indonesia are two species of blue-spotted stingray: Taeniura lymma, which frequents coral rich areas, and Dasyatis kuhlii, which lives in sandy areas of disturbed reef, or between patch reefs. A much larger animal is the grey reef ray (Taeniura melanospilos).

Not all rays are bottom-dwellers. The spotted eagle ray (Aetobatis narinari) cruises the reef edge looking for crustaceans. Eagle rays can reach 2.3 meters across.

The largest ray, however, is the manta (Manta birostris). Like the whale shark, mantas are essentially open water fish, but they are regularly seen by divers in Indonesia. The manta ray, growing up to 6.7 meters across and weighing 1,400 kilos, is a planktivore. Both whale sharks and mantas occur only seasonally in different parts of the country, as they migrate to the areas where the plankton is thickest.