The one with blue spots on a grey disc, not the one with a bright blue ribbon tail.
A small stingray with a disc to about 47 cm, olive to grey-brown above, scattered with blue spots of varying size and carrying a dark mask across the eyes. The tail is about as long as the disc, banded black and white towards the tip, and bears one or two serrated venomous spines. It is regularly confused with the blue-spotted ribbontail ray Taeniura lymma, which is a rounder, brighter animal with even blue spots and two blue stripes running the length of a much thicker tail, and which sits under coral rather than burying in sand.
Buries in sand and seagrass with only the eyes and spiracles showing, and feeds on worms, crustaceans and small fish taken from the sediment. It moves off well before a diver arrives, so most encounters are of a departing animal and a cloud. The sting is a defensive strike delivered upward and backward with the tail, and injuries almost always come from standing on a buried animal in the shallows. Recorded from about 1 to 30 m. Listed as Vulnerable, and heavily taken in inshore fisheries across its range.
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.