#trygonorrhina

[saritawolf]

Eastern Fiddler Rays (Trygonorrhina fasciata) - (c) SaritaWolf - please do not repost

[howstrangethemusicsoundstome]

I love him T_T

[drhoz]

#1566 - Trygonorrhina fasciata - Southern Fiddler Ray

AKA banjo shark, fiddler ray, green skate, magpie fiddler ray, and parrit.

The two fiddler rays are Australian endemics in the Rhinobatidae family (guitarfishes and shovelnose rays), with anatomical features from both sharks and true skates. The head and the pectoral fins are fused into a flat, rounded body, similar to the related shovelnose rays. Unlike the better-known stinrays, they lack a venomous spine in the tail, but do have a row of thorn-like denticles along their back.  

They are opportunistic bottom feeders eating a wide variety of fish and invertebrates.

Female southern fiddler rays grow to almost twice the size of the males, 150cm vs. 90cm, and can delay the development of embryos until the young can be born when food is plentiful and ocean temperatures are high and conducive to rapid growth. They birth 4 to 6 young per breeding cycle, after a gestation of 4 to 5 months.

During the day they stay buried in the soft substrate in very shallow coastal waters in estuaries and seagrass beds in southern Australia from Lancelin, WA to Victoria, but they’ve also been caught in water 50 metres deep.

[libutron]

Banjo Shark - Montague Island | ©Rowland Cain  (Montague Island, New South Wales, Australia)

The Banjo shark or Fiddler ray, genus Trygonorrhina, are guitarfish in the family Rhinobatidae and order Rajiformes.

Banjo sharks are actually shark-like ray with disc flattened, oval to diamond-shaped; snout short, broadly triangular; row of large thorn-like denticles along the middle of the back; yellowish-brown above with dark-edged greyish bands radiating from the eyes and on either sides of back; lower caudal-fin lobe poorly-defined; and no distinct triangular or diamond-shaped marking behind eyes [1].

There are two species of banjo sharks found along the eastern and southern coasts of Australia [2].