A heavy shark-shaped ray with a broad rounded snout and ridges of thorns above the eyes. Uncommon and unmistakable.
To about 2.7 m, grey-blue with white spots, a broad rounded snout, a shark-like body and heavy ridges of thorns above the eyes and along the back. It is sometimes called the shark ray, and the shape is genuinely intermediate: the front half is flattened like a ray, the back half is built like a shark.
It lies on sand near reef in northern Australia and through the Indo-Pacific, and it feeds on crustaceans and molluscs crushed with flattened teeth. Like the wedgefishes it is critically endangered and for the same reason. It is a rare sighting anywhere.
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.