Fishes of the Western North Atlantic 46 1 



out the tropical belt of its range, and this may be true also for some distance north- 

 ward along both coasts of Florida. But it reaches North Carolina only as a summer 

 visitor, recorded in July and September, perhaps coming northward via the Gulf 

 Stream. 



Numerical Abundance. No definite information is available as to the numerical 

 abundance of this species anywhere along the South American Coast, in the West Indian 

 region, or around Florida. Rut it must be tolerably plentiful in Brazilian waters, to 

 judge from the considerable number of specimens from the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro 

 that are preserved in various museums. And in favorable summers it visits the northern 

 margin of its range in such numbers that one experienced observer has reported cap- 

 turing up to 50 specimens in a season and seeing a school of hundreds passing his yacht 

 about three feet below the surface of the water in the vicinity of Cape Lookout, North 

 Carolina.*' 



Relation to Man. Wounds caused by the tail spines of the Spotted Duck-billed Ray 

 are described as excruciatingly painful and as sometimes having serious results such as 

 the loss of a leg or arm, death sometimes resulting. Thus we read that in Malayan waters 

 they "cause severe symptoms of poisoning. Violent pain and faintness precede rapid 

 local swelling about the puncture which quickly becomes the seat of violent inflammation 

 and perhaps gangrene."** It is probable that their spines are rendered venomous by 

 glandular tissue similar to that of the dasyatids (p. 336), though this is not definitely 

 established. But fishermen do not fear them as much as other Sting Rays, partly because 

 they do not resist capture as vigorously as the dasyatids, but chiefly because they cannot 

 lash their spines as violently, since these are borne close to the root of the tail. They are 

 of some commercial importance of a negative sort because of their habit of preying upon 

 shellfish beds, especially those of the pearl oyster in Ceylon waters. On the other hand, 

 they are used for human food to some extent in the West Indies, in the towns along 

 the Gulf of Campeche, Mexico, along the coasts of India, among the East Indies, in the 

 Hawaiian Islands, and perhaps among other island groups of the Pacific. 



Range. Tropical and warm temperate belts of the Atlantic, from Angola (about 

 Lat. 1 1° S) to the vicinity of Cape Verde in the east; from southern Brazil to North 

 Carolina and straying as far north as Chesapeake Bay in the west; also widespread in 

 the corresponding thermal belts on both sides of the Pacific including its island groups, 

 in the East Indian-Philippine-Australian region, in the Indian Ocean around India, and 

 along East Africa to Knysna in about Lat. 34° S, a little east of C. Agulhas,*^ also in 

 the Red Sea. 



Occurrence in the Western Atlantic. Aetobatus narinari occurs generally along the 

 subtropical and tropical Atlantic and Caribbean shores of South America, being recorded 

 definitely from the vicinity of Santos (Praia de San Vincente), Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and 

 Pernambuco in Brazil; French, British, and Dutch Guianas; Trinidad; Venezuela; 



87. Coles, Bull. Amer. Mus. nat. Hist., 28, 1910: 338; Proc. biol. Soc. Wash., 28, 1915: 94. 



88. Gimlette (Malay Poisons, 1923: 120, quoted from Gudger [Bull. Hist. Med., 14, 1943: 482]). See also Coles (Bull. 

 Amer. Mus. nat. Hist., 28, 1910: 340) for a firsthand account of a wound which he suffered. 



89. Reported south to Knysna by Smith (Sea Fish. S. Afr., 1949: 68). 



