A dark ray covered in white spots, with a long whip tail and a duck-like snout it uses to dig shellfish out of sand.
To about 2.5 m across the disc, dark above and covered in white spots, with a long whip tail and a duck-like snout it uses to dig shellfish out of sand. It flies rather than undulates, and a group of them along a wall is one of the sights of a Caribbean dive.
The barbs sit at the base of the tail rather than partway along it, and this is not an animal that stings divers: it swims away, and it does so before most people get close. It is here with a hazard note because the barb exists and because the recorded injuries involve animals caught in nets or landed on boats. In the water it is a subject rather than a risk.
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.