Critically Endangered
Bull ray
Aetomylaeus bovinus
Bull ray is an eagle ray in the family Myliobatidae (order Myliobatiformes) — Aetomylaeus bovinus, recorded as Critically Endangered.
The eagle ray
Bull ray is an eagle ray in the family Myliobatidae (order Myliobatiformes) — Aetomylaeus bovinus.
Range and habitat
The full distribution of the bull ray is uncertain but it is known to be found in the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the eastern Atlantic Ocean between Portugal and Guinea, the Atlantic from north of Saldanha Bay in western South Africa and round the rest of the South African coast into the Indian Ocean up to Maputo Bay in southern Mozambique, also Zanzibar and Kenya. It is found between the surf zone and depths of 65 m (213 ft) or more and also enters estuaries and lagoons. Some of these shallow coastal habitats may function as nursery areas, such as in Malta.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Rays feed on the bottom or in open water depending on the family. Nets and shallow-water fisheries are the usual human contact.
Sharks and rays grow slowly and have few young. A fishery that treats them as bycatch can empty a coastal form.
In crisis
Bull ray is facing various and numerous threats, from fisheries to habitat degradation. On a global scale, Bull ray is classified as Critically Endangered. The bull ray is now part of the 53% of elasmobranchs native to the Mediterranean Sea that are at risk of extinction and require urgent action to conserve their population and habitats.
Bull rays appear to be extremely rare throughout the Mediterranean region and their current population trend is highly suspected to be decreasing (by 80% during the last 45 years according to IUCN). Much research is required on the bull ray's population, size, trend, habitat, ecology, and threats.
Bull ray is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Bull ray, Wikidata item Q28598850. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
