Round skate

How it lives

A bottom-dweller of cold water on the deeper shelf and slope, found at 147 to 2,055 m and usually at 300 to 800 m, in water of about 3 to 5.5 degrees C. It lays eggs in horned capsules about 3.8 to 4.2 cm long on sandy or muddy sea floor. Newborns are about 7 to 11 cm long. Fisheries Canada lists its life history as unknown, and I found no figure for lifespan.

Where it goes

Movements are not described in the sources I read. It lives on the deep sea floor, far below the depth recreational divers reach.

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

Least Concern (IUCN, assessed 2019). It is taken at low levels as bycatch in bottom trawl and longline fisheries and is not economically important in Canada, where it is rarely caught. Off Norway it turned up in about 13 percent of 5,005 trawl hauls, most often between 70 and 74 degrees north. I did not find a population count. It occurs in the North Atlantic and Arctic, from west Greenland and Nova Scotia to Iceland, Norway and the Barents Sea.