Southern Stingray

Share:

Scientific name

Hypanus americanus

Family

Dasyatidae

Size

1.5 m (5 feet)

Lifespan

17 years in the wilde and 26 years in captivity.

Did you know?

Southern stingrays give live birth to 2–7 pups each year after maturity, which is reached at around 5 years of age.

About Southern Stingrays

A diamond-shaped bottom-dwelling ray species, the southern stingray is common in shallow temperate and tropical coastal waters in the Atlantic Ocean. The southern stingray burrows in sand and seagrass to dig up prey items, in turn stirring up sediments and other small animals. This ‘bioturbation’ not only frees up prey items for other species – feeding southern stingrays are often accompanied by small fish such as bar jacks – but also create microhabitats for small invertebrates, and oxygenate the seabed sediments. Because of their important, but often overlooked roles, benthic rays such as southern stingrays are often referred to as ‘ecosystem engineers.’  

Diet

Southern stingrays are continuous foragers, feeding in sediments on a variety of benthic species including small fishes, worms, crustaceans (shrimp and crabs) and bivalves (clams).

Distribution

Northwest and Western Central Atlantic Oceans from New Jersey, USA to Amapá, Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.

Fun facts

  • Southern stingrays are favorites at several ecotourism snorkeling sites in the Caribbean, including Stingray City in the Cayman Islands, and at Shark Ray Alley in Belize.

Southern Stingray photo gallery

More species to explore

Bull shark

The bull shark is the most well-known of the shark species that can move easily between salt and freshwater habitats. Their freshwater tolerance puts the

Read More
Underwater view of great hammerhead shark and baitfish, Bahamas

Great hammerhead shark

The hammerhead sharks in the family Sphyrnidae are among the most uniquely adapted sharks, easily identifiable by their large, flattened hammer-shaped heads. The bizarre head

Read More

Tiger shark

Tiger sharks are among the most feared species of sharks in the world, with a reputation for being aggressive and somewhat unpredictable. In actuality, tiger

Read More