The Smooth Butterfly Ray PWALL

Penny Wallace

November 3, 2015

Science/English

The Smooth Butterfly Ray

        The Smooth Butterfly Ray or Gymnura micrura lives in coastal waters and is usually found on soft mud or sandy substrates. Also, this organism may enter brackish estuaries or hypersaline lagoons. The region for Smooth Butterfly Rays is in the Western and Eastern Atlantic ocean and in the Gulf of Mexico. The domain for this organism is eukaryote and the kingdom is animalia. The phylum is chordata and the class is chondrichthyes. The order is rajiformes and the family is Gymnuridae. The genus and species is Gymnura micrura. This organism has bilateral symmetry. An interesting fact is that the Smooth Butterfly Ray has three to four pups per litter. Another fact is that its wingspan can be up to 4.5 feet. The Smooth Butterfly Ray has a maximum length of 137 centimeters. This organism has a short tail, lacking a dorsal spine. This organism is smooth and diamond shaped. Gray, brown, or a bit of light green can be the color of the dorsal surface for the Smooth Butterfly Ray. The ventral surface of this organism is white. A structural adaptation is that since this organism has denticles this organism is very slippery and smooth and this makes it swim faster, escaping from predators. The color of the Smooth Butterfly Ray is a structural adaptation because it allows the organism to camouflage. When it spots a predator it will flatten itself to the ocean floor to camouflage itself to hide from its predator. One more adaptation of the Smooth Butterfly Ray is that it can interact with its environment using scent, taste and see. That adaptation is functional because all of those senses are functioned to help this organism survive. Predators to this organism are larger fish and marine mammals. Prey of this organism include crabs, shrimp, various invertebrates, small fishes, prawns, and bivalves. This organism is a heterotroph. A heterotroph relies on other organisms for food. This organism is ectothermic. Ectothermic means that this organism is cold blooded. I am excited to learn more about other organisms! 

(works cited) I got my information from:

" Smooth Butterfly Ray"

http://myfwc.com/research/saltwater/sharks-rays/ray-species/smooth-butterfly-ray/

 and 

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/Descript/SmoothbflyRay/smoothbflyray.html

3 Nov. 2015

This picture is from the learning commons! Yay!:)