Common stingray

How it lives

The common stingray lives on sandy and muddy seabeds, from 5 to 200 m but usually at 20 to 35 m. It also enters lagoons, shallow bays and estuaries. It rests by day, often partly buried in sand, and is more active at night. Females give birth to live young after a gestation of about four months, with 4 to 7 young reported in a litter. Newborns are about 8 to 12 cm wide. The longest recorded lifespan is 10 years, from a Mediterranean population. The tail carries a venomous spine that can reach 35 cm (14 in). The spine is shed and regrown from time to time.

Where it goes

I found no tracking studies for the common stingray. It is often seen alone or in groups, and some groups are mostly one sex.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

Worldwide: Vulnerable (IUCN; FishBase dates the assessment to August 2020). It lives in the northeast Atlantic, from the North Sea to Angola, and in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. It is caught as bycatch in bottom trawls, gillnets and trammel nets, and its numbers are described as dwindling across its range. Survey data in the Adriatic and Black Sea suggest a decline between 1948 and 1998, while Sardinian surveys suggest stable numbers. It is protected in five marine protected areas in the Balearic Islands. An older review (MarLIN, 2018) listed it as Near Threatened in the northeast Atlantic. I did not read a current regional assessment.