Identification
The upper surface is brown to olive, while the underside is pale. The snout has two distinct lobes, and a long, whip-like tail extends behind the disc. The closely similar Brazilian Cownose Ray may require dental characters for reliable separation.
Coastal Movements
Cownose Rays enter bays and estuaries and can form impressive migrating schools. An aggregation near the surface does not by itself establish that the animals are breeding. Their movements connect shallow feeding grounds with other coastal habitats.
Feeding and Young
Broad dental plates help process hard-shelled prey gathered near the bottom. Females give birth to live young, with embryos receiving nourishment inside the mother. A ray’s useful body-size measure is disc width, rather than a length stretched to the end of its fragile tail.
Measure Across the Wings
Disc width runs from wingtip to wingtip. Keep that label attached to a size report so it is not confused with body or tail length.
All Lakes With Cownose Ray
Browse all lakes and reservoirs with confirmed Cownose Ray records in our database, listed alphabetically.
No published lakes are currently linked to this species in our confirmed records.