Marine Science Institute South Bay Monitoring Program
Bat Ray

The bat ray (Myliobatis californica) is a flat-bodied cartilaginous fish with a large head and triangular wings. These fish grow as big as 1.8 m across (6 ft.) from wing tip to wing tip and commonly inhabit bays and kelp beds down to 48 m (150 ft). The long whiplike tail at the end of the fish has a sawtoothed barb at the base that contains a painful neurotoxin. Bat rays eat mainly worms, clams, oysters, snails, crabs, using the hard plates in their mouth to break open the shells. Females grow larger than males and bear live young (about 10 per litter) during the summer. The range of this species extends along the Pacific coast from Oregon to the Gulf of California, Mexico.

Bat Ray
Numbers in South San Francisco Bay: 1993 -1996