Big Skate
Beringraja binoculata
Owl Skate
Rostroraja alba
About
The owl skate is a giant, flat-bodied ray with a long, pointed snout. Males can reach up to 230 cm across, making it one of the larger skates divers might encounter.
Also known as: bottlenose skate, spearnose skate, atlantic white skate, white skate
- Length
- 2.3 m
- Depth
- 50–500 m
How to tell it apart
Other large skates on the same seabed have shorter or more rounded snouts, so the pointed snout described above is the giveaway.
Appearance
Its pectoral fins form a broad, angular disc, wider than it is long, tapering into a long, sharp-pointed snout. Adults are grey or bluish above, often with small white spots, and white below with dark disc margins. Young skates start out reddish-brown above, sometimes with blue spots, before growing into the adult pattern.
Habitat
Owl skates live on the seabed over sand and mixed sand-rock bottoms, from about 30 to 600 m deep, though they are most often found between 50 and 500 m, from coastal shelves out to the upper slope.
Behaviour
This skate hunts along the bottom, eating bony fish, other rays and skates, crabs, shrimp, octopus and cuttlefish. Females lay oblong egg cases with stiff pointed horns at each corner, depositing them on sandy or muddy flats in spring.
Log it in Into the Blue
Describe what you saw and we name it, then keep every species you find in your Oceandex.
