Melbourne skate

Source: Australian National Fish Collection, CSIRO

The Melbourne skate (Spiniraja whitleyi) is a large skate with a quadrangular disc and a broad snout. It has a dorsal surface that is greyish in colour, sprinkled with irregular white flecks.

This grey color mixes in with a pinkish colour on the edges of the disc (especially on the snout) as we go from the dorsal side of this skate to the ventral side, which is creamy in colour. Juveniles can be told apart from adults in that juveniles tend to have a large dark spot on each side of their disc. Their tail has a few rows of thorns on them, and males have elongated claspers.
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Melbourne skates can reach up to 200 cm in length, with males maturing at about 127 cm. Female maturity size is still unknown. Both juveniles and adults can be seen around the continental shelf between New South Wales and Western Australia, including Tasmania, up to 345 m deep! They are benthic animals, and their diet includes teleost fishes, cephalopods (mainly octopus) and crabs. Skates are oviparous; TFUI officials have not been able to gather examples of these egg cases to show to you for ID purposes. The IUCN has assessed this species as Vulnerable (VU).

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glossary

• Benthic zone: The bottom of an ocean or lake.
• Cephalopods: The most intelligent, mobile, and largest of all molluscs. These include: squid, octopuses, cuttlefish, the chambered nautilus, and their relatives.
• Claspers: Sexual reproduction organs found on male elasmobranchs and chimaeras.
• Continental shelf: Extends from a continent underwater, resulting in a shallow-water area.
• Continental slope: The steep slope from a continental shelf to the ocean floor; usually around 20 km (12.4 miles) wide and made up of mud and silt substrate. It is an ideal area for deep sea fishing.
• Crustaceans: Group of animals with a hard exoskeleton, jointed legs and segmented body.
• Disc length (DL): A standard measurement of stingray; disc is slightly longer than it is wide.Dorsal side: The top of an animal.
• Dorsal side: The top of an animal.
• IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature.
• Teleost: Bony fishes.

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