---
title: Leopard Whipray (Himantura leoparda)
scientific_name: Himantura leoparda
common_name: Leopard Whipray
taxon: Whiptail stingray
conservation_status: EN - Endangered
published: 2024-11-04T20:41:28.321Z
updated: 2026-08-12T11:28:54.725Z
tags: Leopard Whipray, Himantura leoparda, Whiptail stingray, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/whiptail-stingray/leopard-whipray
---

# Leopard Whipray (*Himantura leoparda*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Whiptail stingray (*Dasyatidae*)
- **Size:** up to 1.4 m across
- **Depth:** 1-70 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Sand and silty bottom near reef, usually buried
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** EN - Endangered

## How to recognise it

- diamond-shaped disc patterned with dark leopard rosettes on gray-brown
- whip tail two to three times the length of the disc, banded black and white toward the tip
- no fin fold on the tail at all
- disc up to 1.4 m across

A diamond-shaped ray patterned in dark rosettes, with a tail two to three times the length of its own body and no fin fold on it anywhere. Young animals are marked with fine spots and the rosettes develop with age, so a large and a small one look like different species.

The tail is a defense delivery system. The serrated barb sits well down its length, and because the tail is so long the ray can reach a target almost anywhere around and above it - a whip rather than a spear. Everything else about the animal says avoid: it lies buried in sand with only the eyes out, and the sting comes when something stands on it.

It feeds at night on crabs, shrimps, worms and small fish, excavating them by pumping water into the sediment, and spends the day buried.

It was separated from the honeycomb whipray only in 2008, so records from before then are unreliable and the species boundaries in this group are still moving. Whiprays are among the most heavily fished rays in the Indian Ocean, and this one is Vulnerable.

## Also known as

- **English:** Leopard Whipray
- **Italian:** Pastinaca leopardo
- **Portuguese:** Raia-leopardo
- **Japanese:** ヒョウモンオトメエイ, Hyomonotomei
- **JAV:** Pari Macan
- **MSA:** Pari Bunga
- **TH:** ปลากระเบนลายเสือดาว

## Range

Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin

---

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