SELACEA BATOIDAEA 



{Skates and Rays) 



The batoid group is widely represented in the Red Sea by 

 the following families: Rhino batidae, Raiidae, Dasyatidae^ 

 Myliobatidae and Mobulidae. 



Specimens are frequently met with both on the sandy 

 bottom inside the coral barrier and in the shallows of the 

 barrier itself, in the open spaces between the madrepore 

 masses or in the shelter of some of the umbrella-shaped corals. 

 Other species are most numerous on the beaches, following 

 the tides during their flow inland. In these zones it is not 

 unusual to catch some big Rhynchobatus dyeddensis, the guitar 

 fish. Stuart Tovini once met a species of sawfish, another 

 famous batoid, in the Channel of Nocra. We often discovered 

 rays in the mangrove forests when they were flooded with 

 water. These belonged to the species Dasyatis sephen. We also 

 often met the Aetobatus narinari or eagle ray, and were not 

 infrequently spectators of its love-making. In one case we 

 saw the male trying to hold the female by biting her at the 

 bottom of her nape, as cats do. 



From the point of view of size the most impressive of the 

 batoids in the Red Sea is the manta, represented in these 

 waters by the Manta Ehrenbergi which measures up to twenty- 

 one feet or more between the points of the pectoral fins 

 (resembling wide billhook-shaped wings) and weighs more 

 than a ton. 



The ferocity of the manta is pure legend. On more than 



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