DOI: 10.15468/un3wer
title: Where are all the whiptail rays? - Powered by Anecdata.org

description: About this project
Why Stingrays: Stingrays (Family Dasyatidae) make up a significant portion of fish biomass in coastal and nearshore environments and are ubiquitous to tropical marine ecosystems. They provide essential ecosystem services and in some environments may be considered a keystone species. Despite their importance in tropical marine ecosystems, very few data are available on even the most basic life-hist
http://ceibahamas.org

The Caribbean whiptail stingray (Himantura schmardae) is a very large, ovate, grey stingray found throughout The Caribbean from northern South America to Florida, yet reports from The Bahamas are rare and largely anecdotal with just one published report from 1968. 

The Cape Eleuthera Institute's Stingray Research Initiative recently identified several sub-populations of this species and has since attracted funding to make a more comprehensive assessment of its biology and ecology. This research will focus mainly on the genetic conenctivity of these sub-populations and how the fragmented nature of the The Bahamas acts as barriers to gene flow, considering this is a live bearing species. 

The Project:
The main objective of 'Where are all the Whiptail Rays?' is to create an awarenss of this species in The Bahamas, and provide a hub for citizen scientists to contribute to our knowledge of this species' whereabouts. Specifically we would like to know:

Location, time and date of any observations
Habitat type i.e. off shore coral reef, mangrove creek, estuary etc. 
Individual sighting or agregations of several individuals
Sex (where possible)
Photographs of animals
Presence of external dart tag on left hand side
Approximate size of the animal's disc width - how wide across
 

What makes a whiptail stingray?
Caribbean whiptail rays are easily identifiable by several key factors: 

Round or ovate shaped rather than diamond shaped
Light to dark grey
Very thick, muscular tail
Small eyes
No skin fold on tail
Not to be confused with the southern stingray which is dark, diamond shaped and has a skin fold on its tail; the Caribbean whiptail is very distinguisable. Sex is identified via the presence or absence of two penises, or claspers that proturude from benenath the base of the tail in males.

 

Conservation Benefits:
Anthropgenic incursion to coastal habitats throughout The Caribbean has led to degradation and in some cases destruction of environments considered critical in the life history of many species considered important, either ecologically or commercialy. Gathering these types of data will allow us to promote the conservation value of certain habitats and ecosystems where these animals are found. Stingrays are excellent tools with which to demonstrate the importance of conservation and management frameworks to be applied to the habiats within which they are found. 

Please contact Dr. Owen R. O'Shea at The Cape Eleuthera Institute in The Bahamas for further information:

owenoshea@ceibahamas.orgopen_in_new

Stingrays are largely under-represented in scienctific as well as popular literature and your contribution here, will allow much needed data to promote their conservation value, and the ecosytems that support them. 

Thank you!