page_title: Common stingray
section_title: Human interactions
hierarchical_section_title: Common stingray / Human interactions
caption_attribution_description: English: Stinger of the stingray (Dasyatis pastinaca). Русский: Шип хвостокола Dasyatis pastinaca (Морской лисы).
context_page_description: The common stingray is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae, found in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean and Black Seas. It typically inhabits sandy or muddy habitats in coastal waters shallower than 60 m, often burying itself in sediment. Usually measuring 45 cm across, the common stingray has a diamond-shaped pectoral fin disc slightly wider than long, and a whip-like tail with upper and lower fin folds. It can be identified by its plain coloration and mostly smooth skin, except for a row of tubercles along the midline of the back in the largest individuals.
  The predominant prey of the common stingray are bottom-dwelling crustaceans, though it also takes molluscs, polychaete worms, and small bony fishes. It is aplacental viviparous: the embryos are nourished by yolk and later histotroph produced by the mother. Females bear 4–9 young twice per year in shallow water, after a gestation period of four months. The common stingray can inflict a painful, though rarely life-threatening, wound with its venomous tail spine. During classical antiquity, its sting was ascribed many mythical properties.
context_section_description: Though not aggressive, the common stingray can inflict an excruciating wound with its serrated, venomous tail spine. The ancient Greeks and Romans greatly feared its venom, with authors such as Aelian (175–235 AD) stating that stingray wounds were incurable. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD), in his Natural History, asserted that its spine was capable of killing trees, piercing armor like an arrow, and corroding iron. Greek poet Oppian (172–210 AD) claimed that the touch of stingray venom could even dissolve stone. In Greek mythology, Hercules was said to have lost a finger to the bite of a stingray, and Circe was said to have armed her son Telegonus with a spear tipped with a stingray spine, with which he accidentally slew his father Odysseus.
  British zoologist Francis Day, in his 1884 The Fishes of Great Britain and Ireland, noted that the common stingray was not eaten because of its "rank and disagreeable" flesh, and that Welsh fishermen used its liver oil as a treatment for burns and other injuries. In the present day, the pectoral fins or "wings" of this species are sold smoked or dried and salted, and it is also utilized as a source of fishmeal and liver oil. The liver is regarded as a delicacy in French cuisine, and used to prepare dishes such as beignets de foie de raie and foie de raie en croute.
  Common stingrays are caught incidentally by commercial fisheries across many parts of its range, using bottom trawls, gillnets, bottom longlines, beach seines, and trammel nets. Because of its inshore habitat preferences, this ray is more susceptible to small-scale coastal fisheries than to industrial operations, such as in the Balearic Islands, where it makes up 40% of the shark and ray trammel net catch. Surveys indicate that common stingrays have declined in the Mediterranean and the northeastern Atlantic, and may have been extirpated from the Bay of Biscay. As a result, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed this species as Near Threatened in those two regions, while the species as a whole is listed under Data Deficient. The common stingray is protected within five marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Balearic Islands, and also benefits from a European Union ban on the use of trawls within 5.6 km (3.5 mi) of the coast.
caption: The serrated tail spine of the common stingray is potentially dangerous.
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