Smooth Butterfly Ray
The smooth butterfly ray, (Gymnura micrura) is a ray that lives along the coast over sandy bottoms that are estuaries from the Western to the Eastern Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The domain of the smooth butterfly ray is eukaryote, the kingdom is animalia, the phylum is chordata, and the class is chondrichthyes. The order is rajiformes, the family is gymnuridae, the genus is Gymnura, and finally the species is micrura. This organism has bilateral symmetry which means that if you divide them straight down the middle, then the two parts will be identical. This ray is brown/gray with small dark spots on the dorsal side and white spots on its ventral side. A structural adaptation is the color of them which allows them to blend in with ocean water. Another structural adaptation is they look very similar to the poisonous spiny butterfly ray, because smooth butterfly rays are not poisonous so many predators stay away from them. The last structural adaptation is that they have large wings to help them glide smoothly through ocean water. An interesting fact about these animals are that they are small and have no spine so they cause little danger to humans. They feed on bivalves, shrimp, crab, and ray-finned fish which makes them heterotrophs. Their predators include larger fish and marine mammals. These organisms are ectotherms which means that they can’t regulate their own temperature and rely on the heat of their environment. Two of my sources that I used are http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/Descript/SmoothbflyRay/smoothbflyray.html and http://www.vims.edu/research/departments/fisheries/programs/multispecies_fisheries_research/species_data/smooth%20butterfly%20ray/index.php
By Hannah Pierce 
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