Butterfly Ray

The Butterfly Ray (Gymnura micnera) is a brown, gray, green, and has a small dark protruding snout.  It has camoflage and a tail spike which is a structural adaption.  It has a electrical sensitivity to help them find prey.  The Butterfly Ray lives in the Eastern and the Western Atlantic.  The Butterfly Ray’s prey are bivalves, molluscs, and crustaceans.  The Butterfly’s Ray’s predators are large fish, sharks and humans from commercial fishing.  The Butterfly Ray has bilateral symmetry, heterotrophic and endothermic.  The order of classification is:

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom:Animalia

Phylum: chordata

Class: chondrichthyes

Order:rajiformes

Family: diodontidae

Genus: chilomycterus

Species: schoepfi

Lastly, an interesting fact about the butterfly ray is it’s pectoral fins form a disc that is much bigger than it’s longer.