Spotted ray (homelyn ray)

How it lives

It lives on sand or mud on the continental shelf, from 8 to about 530 m and usually 20 to 120 m. It lays eggs. Wikipedia reports females lay 60 to 70 egg cases a year, each 5 to 8 cm long, in summer. Pups hatch fully formed after 5 to 6 months at about 11 to 12 cm. The oldest age reported is 18 years.

Where it goes

Young rays use shallow sandy inshore areas, and adults move to offshore sand or sand-gravel seabeds, per FishBase. The sources I opened do not give set 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

Listed as Least Concern by IUCN (FishBase shows this in an entry dated April 2023). It ranges from the Shetland Islands and Norway south to Morocco, including the Mediterranean. OSPAR lists it as a threatened or declining species in parts of the North-East Atlantic, with bycatch in commercial fisheries the main threat. OSPAR reports stock indicators rising in some regions since 2009, and the EU has managed skates and rays under a group quota since 1999. ICES advice quoted by the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide says biomass is above and fishing pressure below sustainable levels, but the stock is data-poor.