Marine life  /  Sharks & rays  /  Marbled electric ray
Entry in progress
Species entry

Marbled electric ray

Torpedo sinuspersici

A soft-bodied ray with no barb and no thorns that delivers an electric shock from organs behind the eyes.

Size
To 60 cm
Depth
3–30 m
Habitat
Buried on sand
Active
Night
Range
Indo-Pacific
Rarity
Red Sea
4 stars of 5, two or three a season
SP-01
marbled electric ray · full body · habitat
4:3 · min 2400px

To about 60 cm, round, soft-bodied and marbled in brown, lying buried on sand with the eyes showing. It has no obvious spine and no barb, and nothing about it looks like a hazard.

It delivers an electric shock from paired organs behind the eyes, strong enough to knock a person off balance. It is a hunting and defensive tool rather than an attack: the ray uses it on prey and on anything that lands on it. The risk is putting a hand or a knee on a buried animal, and the consequence underwater is the shock and the surprise rather than lasting harm. Look at the sand.

Where to find:

LocationRarity Best monthsDepthHabitat
Red Sea Egypt editorial estimate
4 stars of 5, two or three a season
Year-round
3–30 m
Buried on sand

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.

Related species

SP
atlantic guitarfish
16:10
Atlantic guitarfish
Pseudobatos lentiginosus
SP
bigeye thresher
16:10
Bigeye thresher
Alopias superciliosus
SP
blacktip reef shark
16:10
Blacktip reef shark
Carcharhinus melanopterus
SP
blacktip shark
16:10
Blacktip shark
Carcharhinus limbatus