Stingray
Facts

11812s Stingray Bracelet 7.9 Grams of Gold
 

 

  • There are four thousand five hundred types of rays
  • Stingrays eat rocks to crush their Food
  • Stingrays have 200 of sting in their tail
  • Manta rays can grow to be 49 feet wide
  • Stingrays suck fish into their months
  • Stingrays eat fish , crabs and squid
  • Stingrays have no bones
  • Some stingrays have thick tails
  • Stingrays live under ocean and in coral reefs
  • They also live in mangroves , under sand or in sea weed
  • Stingrays live in groups of four or five

  • Adult body size 10-13-3/4 in. disc width, females usually larger.

  • Disc rhomboid in shape, snout projecting as a broad-based triangle with pointed tip

  • Brown or yellowish brown above, paler towards margin of disc

Geographic Distribution

  • USA, from Chesapeake Bay to Florida and along the Gulf of Mexico coast to central America.

  • Depth range from intertidal zone to 66 ft

  • Most common in shallow coastal areas

  • Habitat  Muddy, sandy bottom

  • Bury themselves in the sand (camouflage)

Food and Foraging Habitat

  • Feeds on surface, infaunal, and tube dwelling species, including tube anemones, Polycheate worms, small crustaceans (amphipods mole crabs, pistol shrimp), clams and serpent stars

  • Bottom dwellers, mouth is located on the ventral side

  • Face into current while feeding, current carries the sediment away from mouth

  • Courtship and Reproductive Biology

  • Ovoviviparity (form of live bearing)

  • Males’ claspers near cloaca and the end region of the claspers (glans) contain tiny structures hooks, spines that open during copulation maintaining contact within the female (holding) and transferring semen.

  • Males often initially follows the female snout close to her cloaca with some degree of nibbling and biting of the female disc

  • Breeding period: October-March

  • Litter size: 1-4, usually 2-3

  • Gives birth in mid to late summer in Florida

  • Gestation period: April-August

  • Defense Mechanism

  • Stinging spines, modified dorsal fin structure that tapers to a sharp point edges are serrated

  • Once driven into a victim sting remains. Venom is produced along two narrow grooves

Florida Connection

  • St. John River has the only freshwater population in North America of any elasmobranches

REFERENCES

  1. Biglow, H.B. and William C. Schroeder. Fishes of the Western North Atlantic Part two.
  2. Sears Foundation for Marine Research, Yale University. 1953.
  3. Micheal S.W. Reef Sharks and Rays of the World. Sea Challengers. Petaluma, Ca. 1993.
  4. Tricas, T.C. et al. The Nature Company Guides Sharks and Rays. Weldon Owen. San Francisco, Ca. 1997.
  
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