Leopard Whipray

Size

• This is a large stingray reaching 6.5 feet (410 cm) in length, including its tail. It grows to about 4.6 feet (140 cm) in width. The newborn are about 8 inches (20 cm) wide.

Body Composition

• The tail is long and slender (up to three times the body length), tapers to a fine point and has a single spine (or barb).
• Snout is broadly triangular and the disc-shaped body is slightly longer than wide.

Color

• Upper surface of the adult’s body and tail is sandy brown in color and covered in a pattern of closely spaced leopard-like circular brown to black rings.
• Juvenile has gray to brown coloration with larger black spots.

• Leopard whipray feeds on crabs, shrimp and shelled invertebrates.

Range

• Leopard whipray occurs in the Indo-West Pacific from the Bay of Bengal to New Guinea, north to the Ryukyu Islands and south to Northern Australia. It is not present in the Western Indian Ocean.

Habitat

• This stingray is found inshore over sandy bottom in the open and near reefs.

• This species is ovoviviparous.

• “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List.

• Sometimes appears as by-catch in trawl nets, deep gill nets and hook-and-line fisheries.
• Leopard whipray is valued for its meat, skin and cartilage in some locations.
• Habitat destruction is also negatively affecting the leopard whipray.
• Also known as Bleeker’s variegated whipray, and often mistaken for other similar species, such as Himantura fava and Himantura uarnak.

• www.fishbase.org
• www.iucnredlist.org
• Sharks and Rays of Australia, Last, Peter R. and Stevens, John D. Harvard University Press