Longnose Stingray

Fascinating facts about the Longnose Stingray

• A 1648 naturalist’s sketch of a "iabebirete" turned out to be the first record of this stingray, long before it earned the name Hypanus guttatus. That early glimpse sparked a taxonomic journey that still reshapes how scientists group stingrays, showing that old classifications like Dasyatis aren’t natural groups after all. It reminds us that even centuries-old observations can rewrite modern biology.
• Newborns arrive only 12.3–15.3 cm wide and immediately seek water under 20 ppt salinity, then migrate to saltier zones as they grow. Females over 75 cm across are found only in salinities of under 5 ppt.
• When two litters of 1–2 pups each are born every year, one in March, another in November, the mother can ovulate again within days, thanks to a 5–6-month gestation that overlaps yolk formation and uterine-milk production.
• A study off Ceará found the ray’s menu dominated by holothuriid sea cucumbers, peanut worms, and crustaceans like Penaeus and Callinectes, which it crushes with 34–46 rows of pavement-like teeth. This dental design lets it grind hard shells that many predators avoid, positioning it as a key predator that helps control benthic invertebrate populations.
• Commercial gillnets and trawls pull this species, making it the most frequently caught stingray off the Guyanas and Brazil’s Maranhão and Paraíba states. Its wings are prized for meat, gelatin, and oil, and it also appears in aquarium trades, yet the IUCN only lists it as near-threatened because its population trends remain largely unknown.

At a glance

About the Longnose Stingray

Gliding just above the soft, silty bottoms of the western Atlantic, the longnose stingray (Hypanus guttatus) presents a striking silhouette: a diamond-shaped disc, slightly wider than long, with angular corners that meet at a modestly projecting snout. Its dorsal surface is an olive-brown canvas, occasionally mottled with darker spots, while the ventral side fades to a pale yellow-white. A slender, whip-like tail trails behind, crowned by a single serrated spine near its base, a dorsal keel, and a darkened ventral fin fold that can reach up to four-fifths of the tail’s height. Most individuals measure about 1.25 m (4.1 ft) across, though the disc can expand to a remarkable 2 m (6.6 ft) in the largest females, which also outgrow their male counterparts. In the shallow coastal waters, no deeper than 36 m (118 ft), that fringe the Gulf of Mexico down to Brazil’s Paraná state, these demersal predators hunt benthic invertebrates and small bony fishes. Their pavement-like teeth grind hard-shelled prey such as sea cucumbers, polychaete worms, bivalves, and gastropods, while occasional crustaceans like Penaeus and Callinectes and the grunt Pomadasys corvinaeformis supplement the menu. A surprising facet of their life history is the salinity-driven migration: newborns are born in relatively fresh water, drift into saltier habitats as juveniles, and later return to low-salinity waters for maturation, with known nurseries as shallow as 3 m (9.8 ft) off Brazil’s northeastern coast. This fluid movement between brackish and marine realms underscores the species’ remarkable adaptability, even as it navigates the perils of a venomous tail spine that can surprise beachgoers and fishery workers alike.

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