Thorny Skate

Fascinating facts about the Thorny Skate

• The thorny skate's back is covered in a dense carpet of tiny spines, with a single line of 13 to 17 larger thorns that stretch from the head to the tail tip. Its underside remains smooth and white, contrasting with the brown upper side that may bear black spots. The fish also possesses a hard, roughly triangular snout and a tail that is shorter than its body, while its jaws hold 38-40 rows of teeth on each side.
• This bottom-living skate inhabits the North and south-eastern Atlantic, occupying waters from 20 m down to 1 000 m and tolerating temperatures between -1 °C and 14 °C. Although it can be found as deep as 1 400 m, it is most frequently recorded between 27 and 439 m where muddy and sandy substrates dominate. Such a range allows it to exploit a variety of benthic habitats across a broad thermal span.
• Female thorny skates are oviparous and can lay between ten and forty-five egg capsules each year, each capsule measuring 3-8 cm long by 2.5-6 cm wide and hatching outside the mother's body. In higher latitudes the embryos may remain in the capsule for up to 36 months before emerging. When they finally hatch, the young skates are only 8-12 cm long, ready to begin life on the seafloor.
• The thorny skate can grow to a total length of about 1.05 m and weigh as much as 11.4 kg. Individuals of this size are typically found on the seafloor, where the species lives over muddy and sandy substrates. It inhabits the North and south-eastern Atlantic at depths from 20 m down to 1 000 m, tolerating water temperatures between -1 °C and 14 °C.

Sources

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• Wikipedia

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