Description

Common Names

No common names available.

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Elasmobranchii

Order: Myliobatiformes

Family: Dasyatidae

Genus: Maculabatis

Species: Maculabatis gerrardi (Gray, 1851)

Climate Zone

Location

Biology

Likely confined to the inner continental shelf (Ref. 9840), over sandy and mud bottoms (Ref. 30573). Recorded from coastal waters and river mouths (Ref. 45255). Feeds on bottom crustaceans including shrimp, crabs and small lobsters (Ref. 5578). Ovoviviparous (Ref. 50449). Important food fish, the skin and flesh are dried or used to produce leather for purses and bags (Ref. 9840). Caught in very large quantities in the demersal tangle net, bottom trawl and trammel net fisheries. Utilized for its meat, skin (high value) and cartilage (Ref. 58048). It is parasitised on the dorsal skin surface by the monogeneans Dendromonocotyle citrosa, D. colorni, D. ukuthena (Ref. 124058) and D. lotteri (Ref. 124051).

Habitat

brackish