SCUBA News 304
(ISSN 1476-8011)
November2025

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What's New at SCUBA Travel?

Golden Dahab Spectacular shore dives dropping off to great depths. This laid-back town offers not only great diving, but great food as well. We've been diving there for over 30 years so use our experience to plan your trip. GO NOW Diving Cape Verde: Atlantic Adventure Way out in the Atlantic Ocean, divers love the Cape Verde islands for the caves, wrecks, dolphins, sharks, manta rays, loggerhead turtles & invertebrates. LEARN MORE

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Blotched Fantail Ray is creature of the month

The Blotched Fantail Ray has many names. I've always known it as the Marble Ray, some books call it the Blackblotched Stingray whilst Wikipedia refers to it as the Round Ribbontail ray. Its scientific name is now Taeniurops meyeni, a revision of the previous Taeniura meyeni.

Giant with venomous spines

Whatever you call it, the first thing you notice about the Marble Ray is its great size. It can be 3 m (10 ft) in length and 1.7 m (6 ft) wide. Round in shape it is covered with a dense pattern of black spots. It is not aggressive but you need to be careful of the spines on the tail which in the past have fatally wounded divers attempting to ride on its back.

Blotched Fantail Ray, Maldives. Tim Nicholson

Where to see them

You see the Marble Ray in the Indian and Pacific oceans. It occurs in a wide range of habitats, from shallow lagoons to outer reef slopes, and often has trevallies swimming near them waiting for foraging opportunities. Carnivorous, the Marble Ray eats bottom fish and crustaceans, stirring up the sea bed as they feed. They venture as deep as 500 m down.

In the Seychelles, Massimiliano Finzi

The species have refuge in areas where coral is healthy and fishing pressure is lower including the northern Red Sea and the Maldives. It is seen frequently inshore by divers in Oman at the Mussandam Peninsula and the Daymaniyat Islands.

Up to 7 pups

The female bears live young: the eggs are kept in the body of the female where the embryo develops. Up to seven pups hatch from the egg capsules and are born soon afterwards.

Tim Nicholson

Vulnerable

The ray is classified as "vulnerable" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This means that it is at high risk of endangerment in the wild.

Overall, fishing pressure is significant over most of the species' range throughout Asia and across its Indian Ocean range (India, East Africa etc). Additional pressure exists on its habitat in that region due to destructive fishing practices (dynamite fishing) and run-off impacting coral reef systems, the main habitat of the species.

Another in the Malives

Further Reading:
Coral Reef Guide Red Sea , Ewald Lieske and Robert Myers (2012)
Sherman, CS et al 2024. Taeniurops meyeni. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2024: e.T60162A124445924. Accessed on 25 November 2025.
Kiszka, J.J. et al. Stingrays as possible facilitators for foraging trevallies in a nearshore sandflat. Mar Biodiv 45, 625-626 (2015).

Class: Elasmobranchii > Order: Myliobatiformes > Family: Dasyatidae > Genus: Taeniurops > Species: Taeniurops meyeni

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Diving news from around the World

Reef-world impact report shows how sustainable tourism is protecting fragile coral ecosystems Achieving an overall reduction of 26% in environmental threats across green diving operations.

Two species of coral declared functionally extinct in Florida Backbone of the reef, staghorn and elkhorn corals, killed off by the 2023 heatwave.

Leatherback protection fund launched Leatherbacks turtles make one of the longest migrations on Earth - swimming thousands of miles. Yet, along their journey, they face mounting threats: poaching, coastal development, sand mining and climate change.

Mauritius rethinks coral restoration 80% of Mauritus corals bleached in the latest event leads to questions whether coral restoration works in the face of mounting threats: from heat stress, ocean acidification and marine pollution.

Fisherman gets $76,000 in fines plus fishing ban for illegal catch A Nova Scotia fisherman has been fined more than $76,000 for fishing in a closed area and lying about where he was.

Study finds deep-sea mining waste threatens life and foodwebs in the ocean's dim twilight zone Particle plumes ejected by mining operations into deep Pacific waters threaten food source of more than half of the zooplankton.

Study provides new forecasts of Maldives' vulnerability to sea level rise 20 islands in the Maldives were flooded when a distant swell event in the Indian Ocean coincided with an extremely high tide level. This once rare event could happen every two to three years by around 2050, data shows.

Underwater art inspires reef conservation on the Great Barrier Reef Divers can explore an mbitious project blending creativity, conservation and community action to protect the world's largest coral reef system.

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SCUBA News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. This means we are happy for you to reuse our material for both commercial and non-commercial use as long as you: credit the name of the author, link back to the SCUBA Travel website and say if you have made any changes. Most photos though, are copyright the photographer. Please get in touch for details.

Photo credits: Tim Nicholson, Jill Studholme, Mark Chang, Fiona Ayerst/Bigstock, SSI, FAU Harbor Branch, Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance/CC BY 4.0, Daniel Lamborn, R Atherton/DepositPhotos, divebooker.com

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CONTACTING THE EDITOR
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SCUBA News (ISSN 1476-8011)

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