The tail is the identification and it is also the weapon. This ray carries a deep flag of skin along the underside of its tail, two or three times as tall as the tail itself, which fans out when the animal swims and gives it the cowtail name.
The spine sits further back, and it is not a tooth or a claw. It is a modified skin denticle, the same structure as the rough scales that cover a shark, grown into a serrated blade with grooves down each side that carry venom. It points backward, and the strike is upward: a ray that gets stepped on drives the tail up and over, which is why the wound is almost always on a foot, an ankle or a shin.
Which also gives you the answer. Shuffle your feet on sand instead of stepping. A ray that feels you coming leaves, and the ones that sting are the ones that were landed on while buried.
If it happens: get out, and put the limb in water as hot as can be tolerated without scalding, around forty-five degrees, for thirty to ninety minutes. The venom is protein and heat breaks it down, and the relief is dramatic. Then a doctor regardless, because the barb is serrated and fragments break off inside the wound routinely.
The species. Pastinachus sephen (Fabricius 1775) - Arabic name for this fish. ETYFish
- tall flag-like fold running under the tail, two to three times the tail's own height
- thick oval disc, plain gray-brown above, white below
- no fold on top of the tail, and the tail tip drawn out to a filament
- usually half buried on sand with only the eyes showing
- disc up to 1.8 m across
Why it's threatened
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
