Endangered
Spotted eagle ray
Aetobatus narinari
The spotted eagle ray is a cartilaginous fish of the eagle ray family, Aetobatidae.
Appearance
Spotted eagle rays have flat disk-shaped bodies, deep blue or black with white spots on top with a white underbelly, and distinctive flat snouts similar to a duck's bill. This ray can be identified by its dark dorsal surface covered in white spots or rings. Spotted eagle rays commonly feed on small fish, mollusks, and crustaceans, and will sometimes dig with their snouts to look for food buried in the sand of the sea bed.
Mature spotted eagle rays can be up to 5 meters (16 ft) in length. The largest spotted eagle rays have a wingspan of up to 3 meters (10 ft) and a mass of 230 kilograms (507 lb).
Range and habitat
As traditionally defined, spotted eagle rays are found globally in tropical regions from the Indo-Pacific region from the western Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the western Atlantic Ocean. Spotted eagle rays are found in warm and temperate waters worldwide. In the western Atlantic Ocean it is found off the eastern coast of United States of America, the Gulf Stream, the Caribbean, and down past the southern part of Brazil.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The jaws of these rays have developed calcified struts to help them break through the shells of mollusks, by supporting the jaws and preventing dents from hard prey. The spotted eagle ray develops ovoviviparously. The eggs are retained in the female and hatch internally, feeding off a yolk sac until live birth.
In crisis
Recent authorities have restricted it to the Atlantic (among them the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico) with other populations recognized as the ocellated eagle ray (A. Ocellatus) and Pacific white-spotted eagle ray (A. Laticeps). The rays are considered near threatened on the IUCN Red List. The spotted eagle ray is included in the IUCN's Red List as "near threatened".
In Europe there is a breeding program managed by the EAZA for spotted eagle rays to reduce the amount of wild caught individuals needed by public aquaria.
Spotted 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 Spotted eagle ray, Wikidata item Q655565. 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.
