''Pseudobatos buthi'', the spadenose guitarfish, is a ray in the family Rhinobatidae. Described in 2019 based on 82 museum specimens, little is known about this species in the wild. All 82 museum specimens were collected in the 1940s and 1950s and sat hidden at UCLA's fish collection and the

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are par ...

until they were described by PhD student, Kelsi Rutledge. It likely is similar in ecology and behavior to its closest relative, ''

Pseudobatos productus The shovelnose guitarfish (''Pseudobatos productus'') is a Batoidea, ray in the family Rhinobatidae. ''P. productus'' was first described by ichthyologist William Orville Ayres, William Orville Ayre in 1854 as ''Rhinobatos productus'', with the g ...

''. This species is found in the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California (), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Vermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja California peninsula from ...

and is a fairly small ray, with an intermediate body form between that of a shark and a ray. It is

benthic 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 the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". ...

and found in shallow water, spending most of its time on the seafloor in sandy, muddy, coastal regions. It is different from other species due to its morphological characters, including a more narrow head and snout, as well as no spots or scales and thorns between

orbits In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an physical body, object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an satellite, artificia ...

and down its snout. This species garnered a lot of media attention due to the describer, Rutledge, who posted mock birth-announcement style photos with a preserved museum specimen, including Forbes, Spectrum1 News, Smithsonian Magazine.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q85794852

External links

Just a freckly girl livin' in a fish world.
buthi Fish of the Gulf of California Fish described in 2019