Pteromylaeus bovina (Duckbill ray)

(Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 1817)

Life > Eukaryotes > Opisthokonta > Metazoa (animals) > Bilateria > Deuterostomia > Chordata > Craniata > Vertebrata (vertebrates)  > Gnathostomata (jawed vertebrates) > Chondrichthyes > Elasmobranchii > Batoidei >  Myliobatoidei >  Myliobatidae

Pteromylaeus bovina (Duckbill ray) [Illustration by Ann Hecht ©]

Identification

A thick-headed eagleray with several pale blue-grey stripes across its light brown disk, a long rounded flat snout like a duck's bill, sharply curved angular corners on pectoral disk, and normally 7 rows of flat teeth. Stripes sometimes absent, underside white.

Size

To 1.8 m DW.

Range

Southeastern coast, Saldanha Bay to Natal and southern Mozambique; elsewhere from temperate and tropical Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, and possibly off Zanzibar in the western Indian Ocean.

Habitat

Inshore waters down to 56 m in the Eastern Cape.

Biology

A powerful, strong-swimming ray, sometimes in small groups, leaps into the air. Feeds on bivalves, gastropods, crabs, hermit crabs, bony fish and squid. Bears 3 to 7 young.

Human Impact

A prized angling fish, generally released after capture; sometimes caught by offshore trawlers.

Text by Leonard J.V. Compagno, David A. Ebert and Malcolm J. Smale