To see photographs of the Smooth Stingray (Dasyatis brevicaudata) click here.
Smooth Stingray (Dasyatis brevicaudata)
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protected: © 2002 Kelvin Aitken.
All rights reserved. Students may use this information for personal research
only. Not for commercial use.
The largest of the world’s stingrays is the Smooth Stingray (Dasyatis
brevicaudata). It can weigh well over 350 kg, measure over 2 m across
the wings and have an overall length of 4.5 m. They are 36 cm across the
disc at birth. It is common throughout its range, from southern Queensland
around the south coast to Shark Bay in Western Australia.
The Smooth Stingray is dark grey to black above with a distinctive pattern
of small white spots scattered across the base of the fins below and behind
the eye. The tail is thick with a single row of blunt thorns ending with
one or two barbed spines midway along the tail which then quickly tapers
to a point. Anglers and commercial trawlers often catch this large ray
and cut off the tail to prevent injury to themselves before throwing the
ray back resulting in many of these rays getting by with amputated tails.
During summer months the Smooth Stingray can be found in water as shallow
as 1 m or less, especially where fish are being cleaned, for example near
boat ramps or piers. It has also been taken by trawlers and drop line
fisheries in water as deep as 500 m. The Smooth Stingray is curious and
will approach swimmers and divers, especially if there is bait or berley
in the water. While these animals are easily trained to take hand-held
bait, they are potentially dangerous if they retain their large barbed
spines. When threatened, cornered or molested they will curl their tail
up and over their back in a threat display.
The tips of the long thin tails of stingrays, whiprays, eagle rays and
devilrays are fragile and often damaged. Therefore with these animals
body size is measured across the wingtips.