Dark with white spots and a duck-like snout for digging shellfish out of sand. Separated from the other eagle rays in 2014.
To about 2 m across the disc, dark above with white spots, a long whip tail and a flattened duck-like snout. It was separated from the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic eagle rays in 2014, so the eastern Pacific animal is Aetobatus laticeps and the older name applies elsewhere. There is nothing in the water that separates them; the geography does it.
It swims rather than lies, flapping the pectoral fins in open water along walls and over sand, singly or in loose groups. It digs shellfish out of sand with the snout and crushes them with plate-like teeth. The barbs are at the base of the tail and it does not use them on divers.
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.