---
title: Reticulate Whipray (Himantura uarnak)
scientific_name: Himantura uarnak
common_name: Reticulate Whipray
taxon: Whiptail stingray
conservation_status: EN - Endangered
published: 2023-12-29T21:42:13.375Z
updated: 2026-08-13T16:14:49.629Z
tags: Reticulate Whipray, Himantura uarnak, Whiptail stingray, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/whiptail-stingray/reticulate-whipray
---

# Reticulate Whipray (*Himantura uarnak*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Whiptail stingray (*Dasyatidae*)
- **Size:** up to 2 m across
- **Depth:** 1-50 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sand and seagrass flats, often in very shallow water
- **Reproduction:** Live-bearer, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **Conservation status:** EN - Endangered

## How to recognise it

- dense leopard reticulation of dark rings on a tan disc
- tail two to three times the disc, banded black and white toward the tip
- disc wider than long, with a bluntly angular snout
- usually half-buried, with only the eyes and spiracles showing
- width up to 2 m

A two-meter (6 ft) disc patterned like a leopard, with a tail two to three times as long as the animal it belongs to. Most of the time none of that is visible: the ray lies buried in sand with its eyes and its spiracles above the surface, breathing through the holes behind them rather than through a mouth full of sediment.

The pattern is not decoration. Under a meter of clear water over pale sand, the fine dark reticulation breaks the outline completely, and divers walk within a step of these animals without seeing them. That is exactly how people get stung: not by a ray that attacked, but by a foot that came down on one.

The sting sits partway down the tail, a serrated spine sheathed in venomous tissue, and the reflex is a fast upward flick. Shuffle your feet in shallow sand rather than stepping, and the ray leaves before you arrive.

It hunts at night for crabs, shrimps and small fish, working the flats and the seagrass. Slow to mature and producing a few live young at a time, it is heavily fished across its range for meat and for skin, and the IUCN lists it as Endangered - a two-meter animal that most divers here have never knowingly seen.

## Also known as

- **English:** honeycomb stingray, Coach Whipray, Fine-spotted leopard whipray
- **Arabic:** شفنين طويل الذيل, Ruget
- **Hebrew:** טריגון נקוד
- **French:** Pastenague indienne, Pastenague léopard
- **Italian:** Pastinaca reticolata comune
- **German:** Indo-Australischer Tüpfelrochen
- **Turkish:** uzun kuyruklu rina baligi, dikenli vatoz
- **Portuguese:** Raia-psicodélica
- **Dutch:** Luipaard pijlstaartrog
- **Czech:** trnucha leopardí
- **Japanese:** アミメオトメエイ, ヒョウモンオトメエイ
- **Chinese:** 花魴, 花點窄尾魟, 花點魟
- **Russian:** Кольчатый хвостокол
- **FI:** leopardisiimarausku
- **JAV:** Pari macan
- **MSA:** Pari Bunga, Pari Harimau, Pari rimau
- **TH:** ปลากระเบนลายเสือเล็ก

## Scientific synonyms

- *Dasyatis uarnak* (Gmelin, 1789)
- *Dasybatus uarnak* (Gmelin, 1789)
- *Himantura punctata* (Günther, 1870)
- *Raja sephen uarnak* Forsskål, 1775
- *Raja sephen var. uarnak* Forsskål, 1775
- *Raja uarnak* Gmelin, 1789
- *Trygon punctata* Günther, 1870
- *Trygon uarnak* (Gmelin, 1789)

## Range

Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Levantine Sea, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, North Atlantic Ocean, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/fishes/rays/whiptail-stingray/reticulate-whipray)*
*Updated: August 13, 2026*