The Broad stingray (''Bathytoshia lata''), also known as the Brown stingray or Hawaiian stingray, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

stingray Stingrays are a group of sea rays, which are cartilaginous fish related to sharks. They are classified in the suborder Myliobatoidei of the order Myliobatiformes and consist of eight families: Hexatrygonidae (sixgill stingray), Plesiobatidae ( ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Dasyatidae. The predominant species of stingray in the

inshore A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past ...

waters of the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost ...

, this

benthic fish Demersal fish, also known as groundfish, live and feed on or near the bottom of seas or lakes (the demersal zone).Walrond Carl . "Coastal fish - Fish of the open sea floor"Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Updated 2 March 2009 They occ ...

typically inhabits sandy or muddy flats at depths greater than . Usually growing to across, the broad stingray has a wide, diamond-shaped

pectoral fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as ...

disc with a protruding snout tip and a long tail with a ventral fin fold. At night, this species actively forages for

bottom-dwelling The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning ...

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s and

bony fish Osteichthyes (), popularly referred to as the bony fish, is a diverse superclass of fish that have skeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondrichthyes, which have skeletons primarily composed of cartila ...

es, often near the boundaries of

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic processes—deposition (geology), deposition of ...

s. Reproduction is

aplacental viviparous Ovoviviparity, ovovivipary, ovivipary, or aplacental viviparity is a term used as a "bridging" form of reproduction between egg-laying oviparous and live-bearing viviparous reproduction. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop insi ...

. As substantial threats to its population do not seem to exist, IUCN has listed this species as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. Th ...

Taxonomy and phylogeny

American

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...

Samuel Garman Samuel Walton Garman (June 5, 1843 – September 30, 1927), or "Garmann" as he sometimes styled himself, was a naturalist/zoologist from Pennsylvania. He became noted as an ichthyologist and herpetologist. Biography Garman was born in Indian ...

described the Broad stingray in an 1880 issue of the

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such ...

''Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology'', giving it the name ''Trygon lata'' from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

word for "broad".Hoover, J.P
Fish of the Month: Stingray ''Dasyatis lata''
hawaiisfishes.com. Retrieved on December 5, 2009. Subsequent authors synonymized ''Trygon'' with ''Dasyatis''.Catalog of Fishes (Online Version)
. California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved on December 2, 2009. The

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...

was collected from what were then called the "Sandwich Islands", and measures across. Lisa Rosenberger's 2001

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analysis of 14 ''Dasyatis'' species, based on morphological characters, found that the

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of the broad stingray is the

roughtail stingray The roughtail stingray (''Bathytoshia centroura'') is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae, with separate populations in coastal waters of the northwestern, eastern, and southwestern Atlantic Ocean. This bottom-dwelling species typical ...

(''D. centroura''), and that they form a clade with the

southern stingray The southern stingray (''Hypanus americanus'') is a whiptail stingray found in tropical and subtropical waters of the Western Atlantic Ocean from New Jersey to southern Brazil. It has a flat, diamond-shaped disc, with a mud brown, olive, and gre ...

(''D. americana'') and the

longtail stingray The longtail stingray (''Dasyatis longa'', often misspelled ''longus''), is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae, found in the eastern Pacific Ocean from Baja California to Colombia. It inhabits sandy habitats down to a depth of . Mea ...

(''D. longa''). As ''D. centroura'' is found in the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

, this suggests that it and ''D. lata''

evolutionarily diverged Divergent evolution or divergent selection is the accumulation of differences between closely related populations within a species, leading to speciation. Divergent evolution is typically exhibited when two populations become separated by a geog ...

before or with the formation of the

Isthmus of Panama The Isthmus of Panama ( es, Istmo de Panamá), also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien (), is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country ...

(about 3 million years ago).

Distribution and habitat

''Bathytoshia lata'' occurs in the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific from southern Africa to the Hawaiian Islands and is also found in the Mediterranean Sea with occasional records from Spain to Turkey. This species is common in coastal bays with mud or silt bottoms, and may also be encountered in sandy areas or near coral reefs. It is most common at depths between 40-200 m but is found as far down as 800 m.

Description

The broad stingray has a diamond-shaped

disc a fourth wider than long, with nearly straight leading margins that converge at an obtuse angle, and curved trailing margins. The tip of the snout is rounded and protrudes past the disc. The mouth is arched and contains five or six

papilla Papilla (Latin, 'nipple') or papillae may refer to: In animals * Papilla (fish anatomy), in the mouth of fish * Basilar papilla, a sensory organ of lizards, amphibians and fish * Dental papilla, in a developing tooth * Dermal papillae, part of ...

e on the floor, two of which are in front of the others. The

pelvic fin Pelvic fins or ventral fins are paired fins located on the ventral surface of fish. The paired pelvic fins are homologous to the hindlimbs of tetrapods. Structure and function Structure In actinopterygians, the pelvic fin consists of two e ...

s are short and rounded. The whip-like tail is twice or more the length of the disc, and bears a serrated stinging spine on the upper surface near the tail base. A long, narrow fin fold occurs beneath the tail, which eventually becomes a keel that runs all the way to the tail tip. Larger rays have three large, elongated tubercles in the middle of the back; the tail is roughened by small

dermal denticle A fish scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of the skin of a fish. The skin of most jawed fishes is covered with these protective scales, which can also provide effective camouflage through the use of reflection and colouration, as w ...

s, along with an irregular row of conical tubercles on each side and several large, flattened tubercles in front of the spine. This species is plain olive to brown above and white below. Though rarely found so far west, the similar-looking

diamond stingray The diamond stingray (''Dasyatis dipterura'') is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae. It is found in the coastal waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean from southern California to northern Chile, and around the Galápagos and Hawaiian I ...

(''D. dipterura'') is the only other nearshore stingray that occurs off Hawaii; it can be distinguished from this species by its tail, which is shorter and has both upper and lower fin folds. The broad stingray can reach across and in weight, though few exceed across.Dale, J. (2008)
Life-History and Ecology of the Brown Stingray
. HIMB Shark Lab. Retrieved on December 5, 2009.

Biology and ecology

During the day, the broad stingray is relatively inactive and spends much time lying half-buried on the bottom. A tracking study in Kaneohe Bay found that individuals rays roamed over an average area of at night, compared to an average diurnal activity space of , and did not rest consistently in any particular spot. Rays were most active 2 hours after sunset and before sunrise, and were more active in the higher water temperatures of summer than winter. The behavior of this species was not significantly influenced by

tides Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tabl ...

, likely because they inhabit deeper water. The broad stingray feeds mainly on

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean gro ...

s, while also taking

polychaete worm Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are ma ...

s and small

es. It excavates large pits to uncover buried

prey Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the ...

, and is often followed by opportunists such as jacks. Foraging rays favor areas close to reef boundaries, where many

parrotfish Parrotfishes are a group of about 90 fish species regarded as a family (Scaridae), or a subfamily (Scarinae) of the wrasses. With about 95 species, this group's largest species richness is in the Indo-Pacific. They are found in coral reefs, ...

wrasse The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 81 genera, which are divided into 9 subgroups or tribes. They are typically small, most of them ...

gobies Gobiidae or gobies is a family of bony fish in the order Gobiiformes, one of the largest fish families comprising more than 2,000 species in more than 200 genera. Most of gobiid fish are relatively small, typically less than in length, and th ...

, and other reef fishes shelter at night. Known

parasite Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of lif ...

s of this species include the

tapeworm Eucestoda, commonly referred to as tapeworms, is the larger of the two subclasses of flatworms in the class Cestoda (the other subclass is Cestodaria). Larvae have six posterior hooks on the scolex (head), in contrast to the ten-hooked Cestod ...

s ''Acanthobothrium chengi'', ''Rhinebothrium hawaiiensis'', ''Pterobothrium hawaiiensis'', ''Prochristianella micracantha'', and ''Parachristianella monomegacantha''. Like other stingrays, the broad stingray is

. Kaneohe Bay appears to be a nursery area for this species, where juvenile

scalloped hammerhead The scalloped hammerhead (''Sphyrna lewini'') is a species of hammerhead shark in the family (biology), family Hammerhead shark, Sphyrnidae. It was originally known as ''Zygaena lewini''. The Greek language, Greek word ''sphyrna'' translates into ...

s (''Sphyrna lewini'') and it are the dominant predators.

Human interactions

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has assessed the broad stingray as of least concern, as it faces no obvious threats from human activity and its

range Range may refer to: Geography * Range (geographic), a chain of hills or mountains; a somewhat linear, complex mountainous or hilly area (cordillera, sierra) ** Mountain range, a group of mountains bordered by lowlands * Range, a term used to i ...

overlaps with several

marine protected area Marine protected areas (MPA) are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conser ...

s. This species has become a popular subject for display at

public aquarium A public aquarium (plural: ''public aquaria'' or ''public Water Zoo'') is the aquatic counterpart of a zoo, which houses living aquatic animal and plant specimens for public viewing. Most public aquariums feature tanks larger than those kept ...

s and resorts.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q140825 Dasyatis Fish described in 1880