Bright blue spots and a short banded tail; usually found under a ledge, not buried.
Disc to about 35 cm across, oval, olive to yellow-brown covered in bright blue spots, with blue side stripes and a short thick tail banded in blue and carrying one or two venomous spines. It is regularly confused with the blue-spotted maskray Neotrygon kuhlii, which has a longer whip-like tail, a more angular disc, dark eye mask and duller spots, and which buries itself in open sand — the ribbontail rarely does.
It shelters under ledges, table corals and wreckage through the day, often with the tail protruding, and moves onto sand at high tide to dig for worms, shrimps and small fish. Groups of several share a shelter. It is easily disturbed and will leave a ledge if a diver crowds it; approaching from the front at a distance and waiting is more productive. Recorded from about 2 to 30 m.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.