---
title: Ocellated Eagle Ray (Aetobatus ocellatus)
scientific_name: Aetobatus ocellatus
common_name: Ocellated Eagle Ray
taxon: Eagle ray
conservation_status: EN - Endangered
published: 2024-01-02T21:11:26.981Z
updated: 2026-08-13T15:56:35.905Z
tags: Ocellated Eagle Ray, Aetobatus ocellatus, Eagle ray, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/eagle-ray/ocellated-eagle-ray
---

# Ocellated Eagle Ray (*Aetobatus ocellatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Eagle ray (*Myliobatidae*)
- **Size:** up to 3 m across
- **Weight:** 230 kg
- **Depth:** 1-100 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sand flats and open water along reef walls
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Venomous
- **Conservation status:** EN - Endangered

## How to recognise it

- dark back covered in white spots and rings, white below
- long duckbill snout, held down while cruising
- whip tail several times the length of the body, with spines at its base
- flies rather than swims, with slow deep wingbeats
- width up to 3 m

Three meters (10 ft) across, spotted like a night sky, cruising past a wall with slow deep wingbeats. Everything about the shape is built for open water, and then it goes down to the sand and starts digging.

The snout is the tool. It is a flattened duckbill, used to plow into sand and blow water into it, and behind it sit plates rather than teeth - crushing surfaces that mill shellfish. The ray takes a mouthful of shell and sediment, crushes it, and spits out the fragments while keeping the meat. Excavated pits across a sand flat are usually its work.

At the base of that whip tail are one to five barbed spines. It never uses them on a diver who keeps their distance - injuries happen to people handling netted rays - but a ray in shallow water will spook, and the tail is longer than it looks.

Until 2010 this was lumped with the Atlantic *Aetobatus narinari*, which is why older books here use that name. The animals are separate species, and the Indo-Pacific one is this. It bears live young after a long gestation, a handful at a time, which is a slow way to replace fishing losses.

## Also known as

- **English:** whip moray, Spotted Eagle Ray, Ocellated Eagle Ray
- **French:** Raie léopard
- **Spanish:** chucho pintado
- **Japanese:** マダラトビエイ, Madaratobiei
- **Chinese:** 斑点鹞鲼
- **Russian:** Глазчатый орляк

## Scientific synonyms

- *Aetobatis punctatus* (Miklukho-Maclay & MacLeay, 1886)
- *Aetobatus guttatus* (Shaw, 1804)
- *Aetobatus ocellata* (Kuhl, 1823)
- *Aetobatus punctatus* (Miklukho-Maclay & MacLeay, 1886)
- *Aetomylaeus ocellatus* (Kuhl, 1823)
- *Goniobatis meleagris* Agassiz, 1858
- *Miliobatis punctatus* Miklukho-Maclay & MacLeay, 1886
- *Myliobatis eeltenkee* Rüppell, 1837
- *Myliobatis macroptera* McClelland, 1841
- *Myliobatis ocellatus* Kuhl, 1823
- *Myliobatis punctatus* Miklukho-Maclay & MacLeay, 1886
- *Myliobatus ocellatus* Kuhl, 1823
- *Pteromylaeus punctatus* (Miklukho-Maclay & MacLeay, 1886)
- *Raia quinqueaculeata* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824
- *Raja edentula* Forster, 1844
- *Raja guttata* Shaw, 1804
- *Raja mula* Forsskål, 1775
- *Raja quinqueaculeata* Quoy & Gaimard, 1824
- *Raja tajara* Forsskål, 1775
- *Raja tajara hörraeka* Forsskål, 1775
- *Stoasodon ocellatus* (Kuhl, 1823)

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Federal Republic of Somalia, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, North Atlantic Ocean, Republic of Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/eagle-ray/ocellated-eagle-ray)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*