Nancy Lynn Zuncic, Age 11, Of Berwyn, Ill., for her question:

What is the family of the manta ray?

This flat, flappy ocean going fish was named by the Spanish with their word for blanket. We have given him the name devilfish as an alias because he looks like such a terrifying fellow. He is built like a thick, triangle shaped blanket that ends in a lengthy whip tail. His sides are meaty fins which he flaps like the wings of a bird when he swims through the surface waters of his warm seas. His devilish expression is caused by toothy jaws and a pair of horn like fingers above his eyes.

All the rays belong in the class Chrondrichthyes, the gristle fishes which have skeletons, not of bone but of gristly cartilage. The rays belong in the fishy family Myliobatidae. The genus of the devilfish is manta, and his species is birostris. If he could sign his name, the devilfish manta ray would write manta birostris and every fish expert in the world would know just who he was.