---
title: Longtail Butterfly Ray (Gymnura poecilura)
scientific_name: Gymnura poecilura
common_name: Longtail Butterfly Ray
taxon: Butterfly ray
conservation_status: VU - Vulnerable
published: 2024-11-05T17:36:34.480Z
updated: 2026-08-23T10:32:30.274Z
tags: Longtail Butterfly Ray, Gymnura poecilura, Butterfly ray, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/butterfly-ray/longtail-butterfly-ray
---

# Longtail Butterfly Ray (*Gymnura poecilura*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Butterfly ray (*Gymnuridae*)
- **Size:** up to 1 m across the disc
- **Depth:** 10-30 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Sand and mud bottom in shallow coastal water
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer
- **Conservation status:** VU - Vulnerable

## How to recognise it

- disc much wider than it is long, a broad flat diamond
- very short thin tail, with no sting and no length to it
- mottled brown, usually buried with only the eyes showing
- up to a meter across

Every other ray is longer than it is wide, or close to square. This one is built like a kite.

The disc is far broader than it is long, the wings sweep back into points, and the tail, which on a stingray is a whip carrying a serrated spine, is here a short thin stub with nothing on it. Nothing about the animal is arranged for cruising. The shape is a trap: a wide flat surface for dropping over prey.

That is how it feeds. The ray lies buried on sand with only the eyes exposed, waits for a small fish or a shrimp to pass within reach, and lunges forward and down, pinning the prey against the bottom under the disc before working it into the mouth underneath. Wide is what matters, because the catch area is the width of the animal.

Without a sting it has no defense beyond not being found, so it stays buried, and the usual encounter is a rectangle of sand that suddenly lifts off and glides away with a flapping motion more like a bird than a ray.

It is a shallow coastal animal on sand and mud, which is also where the trawlers work, and it is nowhere common here.

## Also known as

- **English:** Longtail Butterfly Ray
- **Arabic:** شفنين الفراشة طويل الذيل
- **Italian:** Altavela codalunga
- **Portuguese:** Raia-borboleta-de-cauda-longa
- **Dutch:** Langstaartvlinderrog
- **Czech:** křídloun indický
- **Japanese:** オナガツバクロエイ, Onagatsubakuroei
- **Russian:** Кольчатохвостый скат-бабочка
- **FI:** kirjoperhosrausku
- **TH:** ปลากระเบนผีเสื้อหางยาว

## Scientific synonyms

- *Pastinaca kunsa* Cuvier, 1829
- *Pastinaca kunsua* Cuvier, 1829
- *Pteroplatea annulata* Swainson, 1839
- *Pteroplatea poecilura* (Shaw, 1804)
- *Raja poecilura* Shaw, 1804
- *Trygon kunsa* (Cuvier, 1829)
- *Trygon poecilurus* (Shaw, 1804)
- *Urogymnus poecilura* (Shaw, 1804)

## Range

Federal Republic of Somalia

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/butterfly-ray/longtail-butterfly-ray)*
*Updated: August 23, 2026*