Dive Into Your Imagination

Bat rays are elasmobranches and in the same family as sharks and other rays. Usually seen gliding through the water column, they settle in the sand to feed. In the sand flats off the coast of California you can often sneak up on the bat rays as they are feeding.

There are tube worms buried in the sand. They use their wing-like pectoral fins to stir up the sand and dig trenches to uncover mollusks, crustaceans and other small fish. Many other fish often congregate around the bat rays as they get a free meal from what escapes the mouth of the bat ray. The bat rays have teeth that are flat and fused together like dental plates and they can crush and grind up shells to get to the meet within, similar to their eagle ray cousins whose favorite food is the queen conch. Like sharks who constantly grow teeth and lose teeth, so do bat rays. They are shy animals and will swim away when frightened.

BLUE OCEAN TIP: Bat rays are commercially fished. When ordering calamari (squid) or fish and chips at restaurants, you want to make sure that is what you are being served. Many restaurants use bat rays and sharks instead of squid and other sustainable fish.




 

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