Got any interesting facts about the shark cousins, skates and rays?
Skates lay eggs, but rays give birth to live young. This is one of the ways to tell the difference between them. If you come across an egg that looks like a square with pointy ends, it's a skate egg not a ray or shark one.
Both skates and rays spend a large amount of time buried in the sand, hiding from predators or waiting for prey. Like sharks, skates and rays have two small breathing holes near the eyes called Spiracles. These are what skates and rays rely on to breathe when buried in the sand.
The mouth, nostrils and gills of skates and rays are on the bottom of their bodies with their eyes on top; which is where the spiracles are for breathing, since that way they have their eyes and extra little breathing holes not buried.
The Manta Ray is the largest ray in the world with a nine metre width/length. Australia's Coffin Ray has a 200 volt attack to defend themselves from predators, and are able to emit 50 shocks in 10 minutes.
I know skates and rays are being different based on the snout length but this isn't accurate. This is a UK thing though. Thornback Rays aren't actually rays, they're actually skates.
There are 18 species of skates and rays in British waters but only 8 are common; the Common Eagle Ray and Giant Devil Rays, for example, sometimes show up but they're not Common.
The largest skate in the world is the Common/Flapper Skate. It can reach almost three metres in length but is one of the most endangered species in the UK. This is because they grow slowly, have long pregnancies, don't produce every year, produce few young, and are also very vulnerable to over-fishing.
The Common Skate, however, is actually two different species: the Blue Skate and the Flapper Skate. With over-fishing in the 19th and 20th centuries, they're very vulnerable and as two different species, even more at risk of going extinct.