man·ta 
(măntə)
(măntə)n.
1. A rough-textured cotton fabric or blanket made and used in Spanish America and the southwest United States.
2. A very large ray (Manta birostris) inhabiting tropical and subtropical seas, having a whiplike tail and two hornlike fins that project forward from the head, and feeding on plankton. Also called devil ray, manta ray.
[Spanish, blanket, manta (from its blanketlike shape), alteration of manto, cloak, perhaps from Latin mantellum, mantēlum.]