Pink whipray
Pateobatis fai
A soft pink-beige lagoon ray with a long whip tail. We float and watch, never touch or feed, and respect its venomous barb.
Vulnerable (IUCN, 2023) means it is at high risk of extinction in the wild.
Photos show the species, not always the places on this page.
Length
Typical size not well measured; rays studied at Moʻorea were about 0.7 to 1.1 m (2.4 to 3.7 ft) across the disc. The largest discs reported are about 1.8 m (6 ft) wide, and with an intact tail some are reported at over 5 m (16 ft) long
Weight
Not reliably measured; largest published about 18.5 kg (41 lb)
Next to a person
The biggest discs are about as wide as an adult's arm span; most rays at Moʻorea are closer to the width of a small table
What it eats
Mainly crabs, prawns and other crustaceans from the seabed, plus squid, octopus and small fish. The fish pieces given at tourist feeding sites are not their natural diet.
Around people
Potentially dangerous, respect
How it lives
Pink whiprays often gather over sandy flats near coral reefs and return to the same favourite places. At Moʻorea, tracking with acoustic tags showed most rays kept visiting the sites where tourists fed them, while a few hardly used them. Females give birth to live young.
Where it goes
It is faithful to its home sites. At Moʻorea it tends to forage alone over a large home range. No long ocean migration route is known.
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
At Moʻorea these are the rays of the well-known sandbank near Tiahura, where feeding by people since the mid-1990s draws them together. A 2008 study found bite and impact injuries linked to unnaturally high numbers of rays and to boat traffic at feeding sites. When tourism paused during COVID, the feeding site almost emptied, and the rays came back over about two months after feeding restarted.
Meet it respectfully
It has a venomous spine on its tail. Never touch, hold, ride, chase, block or feed a ray. Rays at feeding sites are used to people, but that does not make them safe to touch. Shuffle your feet in sandy shallows, float calmly and let the ray choose the distance.
Fun fact
Tap the bulb to light it up.
In 2016 scientists moved this ray to a new genus, Pateobatis.
Its disc is plain pink-beige to grey-brown, without the blue spots of ribbontail rays.
During the COVID pause at Moʻorea, the ray feeding site almost emptied, and rays returned over about two months after feeding restarted.
A stingray wound is very painful, but most people get better. In a study of 393 people stung at one Californian beach, 75% were hurt on the foot, and none needed a hospital stay.
Pink whipray in the Ocean Atlas
Places we have researched where this animal is recorded. It is never guaranteed, and some places are for watching from the boat only.
Travel with usComing soonTrusted referralExploringOn pause, story onlyEthics pass
Country colour: pink where we travel, blue where we are exploring or refer, grey for story only.
Australia
Egypt
French Polynesia
India
Indonesia
Malaysia
Maldives
Marshall Islands
New Caledonia
Seychelles
South AfricaSources for this page
- FishBase, 2026, Pateobatis fai
- WoRMS, Pateobatis fai
- Gaspar, Chateau & Galzin, 2008, Cybium
- Séguigne et al., 2022, Ethology
- Wikipedia, 2026, Pink whipray
- iNaturalist research-grade records, Pateobatis fai, checked 25 Sep 2026
Facts checked 26 September 2026. Photos: Unsplash licence, or Creative Commons as shown on each photo.
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