Spiny butterfly ray

How it lives

Found in coastal and brackish water over sand and mud, at about 5 to 100 m (16 to 330 ft). It hides by lying half buried. Females give birth to live young after a pregnancy of about 4 to 9 months. A litter is usually 2 to 6 pups, averaging about 4, and newborns are about 38 to 44 cm (15 to 17 in) across. Females grow larger than males. It is not aggressive. It has one or two serrated spines at the base of the tail, and a wound is painful but not lethal.

Where it goes

Lives close to the seabed in coastal water, buried in sand or mud. Males and females partly live apart, with females usually in deeper water except in the breeding season. The sources I read give no migration routes.

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

Endangered worldwide (IUCN, 2019). It used to be common across its range. Wikipedia reports that in the southwest Atlantic it is Critically Endangered, with catch rates down 99% since 1982, that in the Mediterranean it is Critically Endangered and now rare or absent in much of its former range, and that in West Africa it is Vulnerable. Trawls and gillnets are the main threats, and off the Canary Islands it has declined over about 50 years of fishing pressure. Numbers worldwide are unknown.