Butterfly ray

The butterfly rays are the rays forming the genus Gymnura and the family Gymnuridae. They are found in warm oceans worldwide, and occasionally in estuaries.

Butterfly rays
Smooth butterfly ray (G. micrura)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Chondrichthyes
Subclass:	Elasmobranchii
Division:	Batomorphi
Order:	Myliobatiformes
Family:	Gymnuridae Fowler, 1934
Genus:	Gymnura van Hasselt, 1823
Type species
Gymnura micrura Bloch & Schneider, 1801
Synonyms
Aetoplatea Valenciennes in J. P. Müller & Henle, 1841 Dasyatis Gray, 1851 Phanerocephalus Gratzianov, 1906 Pteroplatea J. P. Müller & Henle, 1837

The body of butterfly rays is flattened and surrounded by an extremely broad disc formed by the pectoral fins, which merge in front of the head. They have a very short, thread-like, tail.^[1] They are up to 4 m (13 ft) in width.^[2]

McEachran et al. (1996) place the butterfly rays in the subfamily Gymnurinae of the family Dasyatidae,^[3] but this article follows FishBase and ITIS in treating them as a family.^[4][5]

Species

There are currently 14 species in this genus (others are considered synonyms):^[2][6][7]

Spiny butterfly ray (Gymnura altavela)

• Gymnura afuerae (Hildebrand, 1946)
• Gymnura altavela (Linnaeus, 1758) – Spiny butterfly ray
• Gymnura australis (E. P. Ramsay & Ogilby, 1886) – Australian butterfly ray
• Gymnura crebripunctata (W. K. H. Peters, 1869) – Longsnout butterfly ray
• Gymnura hirundo (Lowe, 1843) – Madeira butterfly ray
• Gymnura japonica (Temminck & Schlegel, 1850) – Japanese butterfly ray
• Gymnura lessae (Yokota & Carvalho, 2017) – Lessa's butterfly ray
• Gymnura marmorata (J. G. Cooper, 1864) – California butterfly ray
• Gymnura micrura (Bloch & J. G. Schneider, 1801) – Smooth butterfly ray
• Gymnura natalensis (Gilchrist & W. W. Thompson, 1911) – Backwater butterfly ray
• Gymnura poecilura (G. Shaw, 1804) – Longtail butterfly ray
• Gymnura sereti (Yokota & Carvalho, 2017) – Seret's butterfly ray
• Gymnura tentaculata (J. P. Müller & Henle, 1841) – Tentacled butterfly ray
• Gymnura zonura (Bleeker, 1852) – Zonetail butterfly ray

Synonyms

• Gymnura bimaculata (Norman, 1925) - synonym of Gymnura japonica
• Gymnura crooki Fowler, 1934 - synonym of Gymnura poecilura

Diet

These species commonly prey on fish, crustaceans and mollusks.