Pacific fiddle rays
| Pacific fiddle rays | ||||||||||||
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Pacific fiddle ray ( Pseudobatos productus ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Pseudobatos productus | ||||||||||||
| ( Ayres , 1854) |
The Pacific violin ray ( Pseudobatos productus , Syn .: Rhinobatos productus ) lives on the coast of the eastern Pacific from San Francisco to the Gulf of Mexico , possibly also to Mazatlán . It's quite common.
features
Females of the Pacific violin rays are a maximum of 1.70 meters long and weigh 18 kg, while males remain significantly smaller at 1.19 meters in length and 9.75 kg in weight. The diamond-shaped body disk of the Pacific violin ray is longer than it is wide. With the exception of individual rows of thorns around the eyes and along the center of the back and tail, the back side is relatively smooth and of a single color, sandy-brown. The first dorsal fin is closer to the base of the pectoral fins than to the beginning of the caudal fin. The tail is thick, the caudal fin medium-sized, without a clearly defined lower lobe. The rostrum is long and rounded at the tip. The teeth are small and rounded. In both jaws there are over 200 teeth in two rows of teeth each. The spiral casing has 8 to 10 turns. Pacific fiddle rays can live up to 16 years.
Way of life
The Pacific violin ray lives individually or in small groups near the coast in shallow water, usually from the surface of the water to a maximum of 13 meters to a depth of 91 meters. Preferred habitats are sandy and muddy bays, seagrass meadows , estuaries and rocky reefs. The animals usually spend the day buried in the sand to look for food at night. Pacific fiddle rays feed on crabs, small fish, clams, and worms. They undertake long migrations, are ovoviviparous and give birth to 6 to 28 young rays per litter, which are 15 cm long at birth.
literature
- Eschmeyer, Herald, Hamann: Pacific Coast Fishes , Peterson Field Guides, ISBN 0-395-33188-9
Web links
- Pacific guitarfishes on Fishbase.org (English)
- Pseudobatos productus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: Márquez, F., Smith, WD & Bizzarro, JJ, 2006. Retrieved November 3, 2013.