Whitemouth skate

11/7/2016

GICIM Database of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. MNHN 1989-0341, Bresil

With Halloween come and gone, people are putting away their spooky skeletons and reaching for their snow-capped fir trees as decorations for their homes. Even in the Southern Hemisphere, TFUI Founder Melissa has seen homemade snowmen made of… well, something white.

So it seems appropriate that the first animal after Halloween should be Bathyraja schroederi, the whitemouth skate. Its genus name, Bathyraja, is Greek for “deep ray,” and it is recorded from depths of 800-2380 m from the Southwest Atlantic to the Southeast Pacific. There has been one record from the Falkland Islands. A poorly known skate, they are oviparous and are known to reach to at least 123 cm TL, with little else information available.

The rare deep-water skate has no thorns around its eyes, and is a pale brown to cream colour with no discernable markings. Its underbelly is usually brown or creamy as well. It is potentially caught as a bycatch in deep-water trawl, but their depth range is outside of fishing activities.

However, the IUCN has been unable to assess Bathyraja schroederi beyond Data Deficient.

ever heard of this skate?

glossary

Bycatch: The part of a fishery’s catch that is made up of non-target species.
IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Trawl fisheries: Fisheries that pull a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats.