A small devil ray with a wing edge that curves forward at the front, usually in schools in open water.
Disc about 1.9 to 2.2 m across; sources differ and the common size is nearer 1.5 m. Dark blue-black to olive-grey above and white below, with silvery pectoral tips and a white-tipped dorsal fin. The tail is shorter than the disc and has no spine and no fin.
There is one diagnostic feature and it is excellent. The leading edge of each pectoral fin has a double bend, an S-curve, with the wingtips swept back. Every other devil ray has a smooth, evenly curved front margin. Munk’s devil ray and the spinetail devil ray are both common at Revillagigedo and both lack the bend. Mantas are far larger and have the mouth at the front of the head rather than underneath.
It filters krill and mysid shrimp through its gill plates, funnelling water in through the two head lobes. It schools, sometimes in large numbers, and it breaches — leaping clear and landing flat, which is often the first sign of a school. Divers usually get fast blue-water passes rather than the sustained hovering that mantas do at cleaning stations. It has been recorded at San Benedicto, but Munk’s devil ray is seen there far more often.
It was uplisted to critically endangered in June 2025 and most sources have not caught up. It produces one pup at a time, matures late and is caught in gillnet, purse-seine and trawl fisheries for the gill-plate trade. Revillagigedo is entirely no-take. It is harmless.
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.