Fishes of the Western North Atlantic 405 



and occurs in seas (including the Mediterranean) where the fish fauna has been 

 studied at many hands, all that is known of its manner of life is that it is most often 

 encountered in shoal water. But it may not be limited to the immediate vicinity of 

 the coast, for one has been taken 20 miles at sea off Cape Hatteras (see Study Material, 

 P- 399) ^t a depth of 30 fathoms by Albatross III, while another Butterfly Ray, 

 probably of this species, has been reported off tropical West Africa from a depth of 

 eight fathoms. ^2 It has been described as grunting loudly with the sudden expulsion 

 of air from its mouth while lying on deck after capture.'' However, it is not known 

 whether this Ray, or any other, normally produces noises while in the water. 



Numerical Abundance. All of the published reports of G. altavela in the western 

 Atlantic have been based either on single specimens or on two or three at most, except 

 for a fisherman's report that suggests the visit of a school to the North Carolina Coast 

 in May 19 14.''' Thus it is doubtful whether any considerable population of G. altavela 

 exists anywhere off the North or South American coasts. This contrasts sharply with 

 its reported abundance on the African Coast in the vicinity of Cape Blanco '* and along 

 Senegambia, if G.vaillanti (Rochebrune) 1880 is actually identical with altavela, as 

 seems probable (p. 399). 



Range. Tropical to temperate latitudes in continental waters on both sides of the 

 Atlantic; Portugal, the Mediterranean, Madeira, the Canaries to Cape Blanco, West 

 Africa, and probably to Senegambia in the east; southern Massachusetts to the mouth 

 of the Rio de la Plata in the west. 



Occurrence in the Western Atlantic. The Giant Butterfly Ray was reported from 

 Brazilian waters as G. altavela more than a century ago'' and from southern New Eng- 

 land as maclura a quarter of a century earlier." Subsequent reports of it from the western 

 Atlantic are equally widely separated in latitude. The additional list of positively iden- 

 tifiable records,'^ so far as we can learn, are as follows: two specimens from the vicinity 

 of Montevideo ; one from Brazil (locality not stated) ; five from Rio de Janeiro, included 

 in our Study Material (p. 399); three from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, unless, indeed, 

 these belonged to the problematical species G.hirundo^^ (see discussion, p. 398); a 

 female, 6 feet 10 inches wide containing four young, taken on May 22, 19 14, and 

 two others, probably of this species because of the tail spines, seined by a local fisher- 

 man at Cape Lookout, North Carolina,'"' where a school of them may have visited 

 the coast at the time; one taken 20 miles off Cape Hatteras in 30 fathoms by 

 Albatross III on January 23, 1950 (see Study Material, p. 399); reports without 



32. Rochebrune, Act. Soc. linn. Bordeaux, (4) 6, 1882: 55; Pteroplatea I'aillanti, reported "par huit brasses de profon- 

 deur sur fond de vase." 



33. Pappenheim, Ann. Naturh. (Mus.) Hofmus. Wien, 21, 1906: 96. 



34. Coles, Proc. biol. Soc. Wash., 28, 1915: 93. 



35. Chabanaud and Monod, Bull. Etud. Hist. Sci. Afr. Occid. Franf. (1926), 1927: 233. 



36. Muller and Henle, Plagiost., 1841: 168. 



37. Lesueur (J. Acad. nat. Sci. Philad., j, 1817: 41); Newport, Rhode Island specimen 6 feet 7 inches wide. 



38. G. altavela has been listed also from the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina (Fowler, Monogr. Acad. nat. Sci. 

 Philad., 7, 1945: 162). However, we examined these specimens, one 185 mm wide and two unborn young of 180 

 and 197 mm, and found them to be G. micrura. 



39. Von Ihering, Rev. Mus. paul., 2, 1897: 36. 40. Coles, Proc. biol. Soc. Wash., 28, 1915: 93. 



