Short-tail Stingray Profile
In 2006, the world lost a champion of the natural world, when Steve Irwin, on a break from wrestling crocodiles and tickling black mambas, went for a swim with some very docile fish off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
In a truly freakish occurrence, his became the only recorded death attributed to the largest species of stingray, a gentle, yet demonstrably powerful ray called the short-tail stingray.
Short-tail Stingray Facts Overview
| Habitat: | Benthic, mostly estuaries and reefs |
| Location: | Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand |
| Lifespan: | 25 in the wild, up to 80 in captivity |
| Size: | At least 2.1 m (6.9 ft) in width, 4.3 m (14 ft) in length |
| Weight: | At least 350 kg (770 lb) |
| Colour: | Grey |
| Diet: | Invertebrates and fish, sometimes plants |
| Predators: | Orcas, large sharks |
| Top Speed: | Slow, with bursts of speed |
| No. of Species: | 1 |
| Conservation Status: | Least Concern (IUCN) |
Short-tailed stingrays are colossal rays, and well known as gentle giants, feeding slowly on the ocean floor.
They are smart and curious, but immensely powerful – enough to breach the surface and capitate the water around them when startled. And they pack a piercing stinger, which they can employ with enough force to kill.
Interesting Short-tail Stingray Facts
1. They’re massive
The short-tail stingray is the largest species of stingray, pushing up close to some of the filter feeders in the Mobula genus.
They’re members of the whiptail stingray family, Dasyatidae, a group found almost all over the world where there is tropical or temperate water, some even in freshwater ecosystems.
The short-tail stingrays are the largest and can span almost three metres across, and even with their short tails extending at the back, can reach four metres long.
Females are significantly larger than males, by about a third, but neither is small enough to be successfully tacked by many predators, fearing only the copper sharks, great whites, and killer whales in most of their range.
2. They’re smooth
This is a ray by many names, many referring to its stubby tail, but the name “Bull ray” points to the shape of its head.
The body is bulky and curved, and generally smoother than we’re used to seeing in a stingray, which also leads to its nickname, the “Smooth stingray”.
This is a common species in the waters around Aus and New Zealand, and unlike many, has a high rate of survival when thrown back in. While it is consumed in some places, it’s rarely the focus of fisheries and is therefore still doing pretty well by conservation standards.
3. The two populations differ
There’s another population around the Southern tip of Africa, and there are some interesting differences between the two.
While the Australian and New Zealand population prefers to inhabit the shallows of the coastal waters, at least in the Summer months, the African population is rarely found so exposed.
They don’t appear to migrate long distances, but the Australian and New Zealand populations will descend to deeper waters during the colder months. Both populations are bottom-dwellers, feeding mostly on crustaceans and fish. 1
4. They’re strong
These rays aren’t an active lot and prefer to move slowly, grazing on what they find on the sea bed.
But this is a choice, and being huge, muscular animals, they are capable of bursts of speed when threatened. They have powerful pectoral fins making the characteristic wing-like propelling force, and these can beat so hard they cause cavitation in the water, creating an audible pop or bang.
5. They have electroreception
Captive experiments on these rays have shown they’re capable of picking up magnetic fields, using wide mats of gel-filled pores on their ventral surfaces called ampullae of Lorenzini.
Like in sharks and other predatory rays, these organs detect the minuscule electrical pulses from the nervous systems of prey animals hiding in the sand and allow the stingray to hunt in the dark.
Their ranges are relatively small, at around 25 km in radius, and the rays will patrol casually, sucking up animals they come across in both daylight and at night time.
While they do have a sting, it’s not used to hunt, only to defend itself, which it can do with lethal accuracy.
6. They can kill
And as we all found out in 2006, this is an animal whose force is enough to kill. Being a stingray, it has a venomous spine in its tail, rarely used, but to great effect in self-defence.
The stinger is serrated cartilage, injecting neurotoxic venom that causes plenty of pain and potential respiratory challenges in humans.
The venom itself is not the most dangerous, though certainly needs to be taken seriously; the stinger can cause a severe puncture wound, regardless.
This is what caused the death of Steve Irwin, a conservation hero when the stinger of a startled ray pierced through his breastplate and punctured his heart. This is the only human death attributed to the species, though fishermen are more commonly injured when releasing these rays.
Treatment involves heating the wound to denature the active proteins in the venom and analgesics for the pain.
7. They’re a bit social
This species is known for its great aggregations during certain Summer months of the year.
This is thought to have a reproductive purpose, and mating involves a horde of pestering males grabbing the flaps of a female, sometimes being pulled along for many hours before she gives in.
While this does sometimes, unfortunately, occur in humans, this is not a recommended strategy, though in these stingrays it serves the purpose of testing the male’s reproductive fitness and the successful choice will flip upside down and mate with her for 3-5 minutes.
The extent of the sociality of the species seems to be poorly understood, but rays are well known for being a lot smarter than we’d normally expect from what is essentially a flying alien dinner table, so it’s likely we have a lot to learn from them. 2
8. They’re smart
Again, these are not aggressive animals. Giant rays, including the short-tailed stingray, are known to be curious and gentle creatures who can be approached and even trained successfully in the vast majority of cases.
Divers hand-feed them often, and they will sometimes approach people to say hello, even if not habituated.
Stingrays like this have an enormous amount to teach us about the convergent evolution of intelligence, self-awareness and the alien’s sense of self, and show signs of deeply developed cognition and lucidity in a totally unfamiliar world. 3
Short-tail Stingray Fact-File Summary
Scientific Classification
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Chondricthyes |
| Order: | Myliobatiformes |
| Family: | Dasyatidae |
| Genus: | Bathytoshia |
| Species: | brevicaudata |
Fact Sources & References
- “Smooth Stingray”, IUCN Red List.
- Hannah Brown (2021), “Manta Ray vs Stingray: 9 Key Differences Explained”, Sea Paradise.
- “Dasyatis brevicaudata Giant black ray”, Animal Diversity Web.