---
title: Blackblotched Stingray (Taeniurops meyeni)
scientific_name: Taeniurops meyeni
common_name: Blackblotched Stingray
taxon: Whiptail stingray
conservation_status: VU - Vulnerable
published: 2024-11-04T20:24:37.295Z
updated: 2026-08-12T10:55:48.764Z
tags: Blackblotched Stingray, Taeniurops meyeni, Whiptail stingray, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/whiptail-stingray/blackblotched-stingray
---

# Blackblotched Stingray (*Taeniurops meyeni*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Whiptail stingray (*Dasyatidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1.8 m across
- **Weight:** 150 Kg
- **Depth:** 1-200 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble beside reef, resting under coral heads
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** VU - Vulnerable

## How to recognise it

- huge round disc, gray-black mottled and blotched, with a pale underside
- short tail with a broad fin fold beneath, ending behind one or two barbs
- small tubercles down the middle of the back, felt rather than seen
- disc up to 1.8 m across

A disc of a ray up to 1.8 m (6 ft) across and 150 kg (330 lb), gray-black and marbled, with a short tail carrying one or two serrated barbs. It rests under coral heads by day with the disc edges rippling, and it is the largest ray most divers here will meet on a reef.

The barb is a defense, not a hunting tool. It sits partway down the tail, backed by venom glands, and it is used with a whip of the tail at whatever is above the animal - the reason that stings happen to people who corner a resting ray or drop onto one in the sand, and effectively never to a diver keeping a meter of water between them.

Feeding is done by excavation. The ray drops onto the sand and pumps water through the mouth to blow a crater in it, exposing crabs, shrimps and buried fish, and the pits left behind are a good sign of a ray working a flat the night before.

It gives birth to live young, nourished inside the mother by a milky secretion rather than a placenta, and produces perhaps seven pups after a long gestation. It is fished across its range and listed as Vulnerable.

## Also known as

- **English:** Blotched Fantail Ray, Giant Reef Ray, round ribbontail ray
- **Arabic:** شفنين شريطي الذيل المستدير, شفنين الحيد الكبير
- **Hebrew:** מחבטן עגול
- **French:** Pastenague à taches noires, Raie à tache noire, Raie à taches noires
- **Italian:** Pastinaca a macchie nere, Trigone a macchie nere
- **German:** Schwarzflecken-Stechrochen, Schwarzpunktrochen, Schwarztüpfel-Stechrochen
- **Spanish:** Raya sartén
- **Portuguese:** Raia-de-manchas-pretas-de-recife
- **Dutch:** Gespikkelde waaierstaartpijlstaartrog
- **Czech:** trnucha indonéská
- **Japanese:** マダラエイ, Madaraei
- **Chinese:** 邁氏擬條尾魟
- **FI:** naamiokeihäsrausku
- **TH:** ปลากระเบนตกกระ, ปลากระเบนหลังดำ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Dasyatis melanospilos* (Bleeker, 1853)
- *Taeniura melanospila* Bleeker, 1853
- *Taeniura melanospilos* Bleeker, 1853
- *Taeniura meyemi* Müller & Henle, 1841
- *Taeniura meyeni* Müller & Henle, 1841
- *Taeniura mortoni* MacLeay, 1883

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/whiptail-stingray/blackblotched-stingray)*
*Updated: August 12, 2026*