Common Stingaree

Fascinating facts about the Common Stingaree

• A sketch by Joseph Banks during James Cook’s 1768-71 voyage gave the first recorded glimpse of the common stingaree, long before anyone had a specimen to study. That early art led German biologists Müller and Henle to create the genus Trygonoptera in 1839-41. It shows how a single illustration can anchor a species’ scientific identity.
• In shallow coastal waters off eastern Australia, this ray lives from the surf zone down to 60 m (200 ft), yet occasional finds have been recorded as deep as 135 m (443 ft). It can reach 52 cm (20 in) in length, with rare reports up to 61 cm (24 in) that likely belong to a different stingray. Its breadth of habitat underscores a flexibility that many benthic fishes lack.
• Juvenile stingarees (10–15 cm) eat almost only shrimp, but as they grow, their diet flips, over 75 % of what they consume by volume becomes errant polychaete worms buried near the surface. This shift from crustaceans to worms mirrors their expanding hunting range along sandy flats and rocky reefs.
• Females nourish their embryos with a nutrient-rich “uterine milk” and usually give birth to two pups after roughly a year of gestation, similar to related species. Newborns are about 12 cm (4.7 in) long; males reach sexual maturity at 35 cm (14 in) and females at 40 cm (16 in). The reproductive strategy highlights a low-output but highly protected life cycle.
• Despite being caught frequently in commercial trawls and by recreational anglers, and even suffering abortive stress when hauled, the common stingaree shows no sign of population decline and remains the most abundant inshore ray in its range. Its resilience reshapes the assumption that heavy bycatch always spells doom for ray species.

At a glance

About the Common Stingaree

The common stingaree (Trygonoptera testacea) glides over the sandy flats and rocky reefs of eastern Australia's inshore waters, its unmarked brownish-gray disc barely wider than long and a broadly triangular snout that sometimes peeks past the disc edge. Its eyes sit beside comma-shaped spiracles, while enlarged lobes frame each nostril, supporting a skirt-shaped curtain of skin with a fringed posterior margin. A modest dorsal fin sits just before a single, serrated stinging spine on a tail that ends in an elegant leaf-shaped caudal fin, and the smooth skin is lighter underneath, occasionally marked by dusky bands. Growing to about 52 cm (20 in) – with rare reports up to 61 cm likely misidentifications – this ray is a bottom-dweller that ventures from the surf zone down to 60 m (200 ft), even reaching 135 m (443 ft) in soft-bottomed offshore areas. Juvenile stingarees, only 10–15 cm long, feast almost exclusively on shrimp, but as they mature they shift to a diet dominated by errant polychaete worms, which make up more than three-quarters of their intake by volume, supplemented by crustaceans, small fish and molluscs. Reproduction is aplacental viviparous: females nourish embryos with histotroph, typically birthing two pups of around 12 cm in early spring after a roughly year-long gestation. A surprising trait is their resilience to capture – although they often abort gestating young and may be spiked by fishers, most survive being discarded, allowing the species to remain the most abundant inshore ray across its range.

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