Sandy skate

Source: CSIRO National Fish Collection.

Get ready for another member of the Rajidae family that is endemic to Western Australia! That's right, the sandy skate (Pavoraja arenaria), also known as the yellow skate, has only been found at depths of ranging from 192 all the way down to 712 meters (usually referring 300 to 400 meters) off the WA coast!

They are a small (34 cm) softnose skate, and can be taken as bycatch in some trawl fisheries which overlap with their range. Currently there is insufficient information these animals (such as life history and bycatch levels in trawl fisheries) to assess them properly. #Finfact: Most of the Australian species of softnose skates were only discovered in the past 25 years and have been described recently (Last and Stevens 2009). The IUCN has assessed them as Data Deficient (DD).

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT THIS ANIMAL?

GLOSSARY

• Bycatch: The part of a fishery’s catch that is made up of non-target species.
• Endemic: Native to a specific region or environment and not occurring naturally anywhere else.
• IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature.
• Trawl fisheries: Fisheries that pull a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats.​

SAY HELLO!

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