My ray came in awesome condition. He ate the 3rd day I had him. I usually don't feed for a couple of days after acclimation just to let the animal de-stress. He was nibbling at stuff in the sand right away and settled in very quickly. I was very pleased with the quality and condition of this animal. The only thing that is a bit strange is that he doesn't look like the picture. His spots are reversed. Instead of having big brown freckles like in the pictures I have seen, including on the fishselection site, this ray has very tiny white spots all over and then big white chocolate chips. He fits the Cortez description in every other way. Short wide tail with bulboous type. Small size (mine is 4 inches across the disc) and very active. My LFS owner/friend told me that he has never gotten a ray in, other than cortez, that has such a small central disc and that is active as much as my new fellow. I did right fishselections and inquire about the color diference and got now response other that for Eddy to say that he was glad that my ray arrived healthy, and he repeated that it came from Baja mexico and was true cortez. He did not comment on the reverse coloring. I have hunted online for pictures of cortez rays. They are hard to find. Most show dark spots. I have hunted for other kinds of rays, and none of the other more common varieties look like my guy either. I wonder if there are a variety of color patterns these guys can come in. But, for my purposes, this ray is perfect. He is small, which is what I wanted and active and eats well and seems hearty since he shipped well. These are the reasons I wanted a Cortez in the first place, so he meets my goals. Hope this info helps.
I can say that my lfs owner/friend says that rays ship extremely poorly, so if you get one that arrives alive and is eating well right away, you have struck gold! So, I am very happy and would use fishselections again.