Endangered
Longheaded eagle ray
Aetobatus flagellum
Longheaded eagle ray is an eagle ray in the family Myliobatidae (order Myliobatiformes) — Aetobatus flagellum, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
Longheaded eagle rays have a prominent cephalic fin attached to the snout, projecting up and away from the head. Eyes are located laterally on the dorsal side of the head. The longheaded eagle ray lacks a caudal fin.
The tail of the longheaded eagle ray is one of their distinguishing features, measuring up to three times their body length, tapering from base to spine.
Range and habitat
Longheaded eagle rays have been observed in the tropical and warm temperate Indo-West Pacific, among them the Western and Eastern Indian Ocean, Western Central and Northwest Pacific Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Japan Sea. The longheaded eagle ray inhabits coastal shallow waters on the interior continental shelf. Longheaded eagle rays are benthopelagic, meaning they live and feed near or on the ocean floor.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Longheaded eagle rays are benthopelagic fishes that feed on crustaceans, cephalopods, echinoderms, and small bony fishes.
In crisis
It formerly included populations in the northwest Pacific, but these were recognized as a separate species, Aetobatus narutobiei, in 2013. It is a poorly known species, but generally uncommon and considered endangered by the IUCN. Due to the over-exploitation of other fish and marine organisms in coastal habitats, longheaded eagle rays are classified as endangered on the IUCN red list.
Longheaded eagle ray is 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 Longheaded eagle ray, Wikidata item Q5033562. 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.
