Groovebelly Stingray

Fascinating facts about the Groovebelly Stingray

• In a 2004 museum bulletin, a 76 cm (30 in) adult male pulled from off Paraná became the type specimen that finally gave the groovebelly stingray its official name, correcting earlier misidentifications as bluntnose or common stingrays that don’t even live there. This clarified its identity and highlighted how many Brazilian rays had been hiding under the wrong labels.
• A smooth-skinned diamond disk just under 65 cm (26 in) wide hides a distinctive W-shaped groove on the belly behind the fifth gill slit, a trait shared with only one other stingray, the pitted stingray, making it a handy field marker for scientists.
• You can find this ray lounging on sandy or muddy flats from just 5 m (16 ft) down to 40 m (131 ft), and occasionally as deep as 80 m (260 ft), showing its flexibility to live both near shore and on the edge of the continental shelf.
• The species is aplacental viviparous; the only examined pregnant female carried two embryos measuring 55–56 mm (2.2 in) long.
• Most of the catches aren’t targeted at them, shrimp bottom trawlers haul them up unintentionally along Brazil’s southern coast, and combined with habitat loss they’ve earned an Endangered status, reminding us that even common bycatch can push a hidden species toward extinction.

At a glance

About the Groovebelly Stingray

The groovebelly stingray, Dasyatis hypostigma, glides over the soft sands and muds of southern Brazil’s coastal waters, its diamond-shaped disc barely wider than its length and its tail whipping like a thin ribbon one and a half times the disk’s span. Its dorsal surface shimmers in yellow-green to brown hues, turning reddish toward the edges, while the underside remains stark white, highlighted by dark fin margins and black tail folds. A distinctive W-shaped furrow marks the belly behind the fifth gill slits, a trait shared only with the distant pitted stingray, and most individuals boast completely smooth skin, only the largest females show a scattering of tiny denticles near the tail base. Reaching up to 65 cm (26 in) across, this ray’s eyes protrude, spiracles flare angularly, and a single serrated spine sits near the top of its tail, ready to defend against predators. In the shallow 5–40 m (16–131 ft) waters it inhabits, occasionally as deep as 80 m (260 ft), it reproduces aplacental viviparously, with females nurturing embryos that hatch inside the uterus, first sustained by yolk then by histotroph delivered through trophonemata. The only examined pregnant female carried two tiny embryos, just over 55 mm long.

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