Stingrays take their name from the barbed spines at the base of their long, whiplike tail. Rays have broad, flat, almost disk-shape bodies with no distinct head. They have eyes on top, a blunt but slightly pointed snout, and large pectoral fins on the side with which they gracefully swim. Stingrays have strong, heavy cartilage dental plates with which they crush their food. Southern stingrays have white underbellies and slate gray, brown, or black upper surfaces.
Stingrays bear live young.
Like other rays, such as the stingray, eagle rays feed on mollusks and crustaceans. They can reach up to eight feet across the wingspan. Mantas are dark brown to black. Mantas have live births and, in all recorded cases, have had only a single embryo. Embryos weigh twenty pounds and measure over fifty inches.