Common stingray

Most British anglers do not know this species occurs here, and that ignorance is the hazard.

IT IS A SUMMER VISITOR TO THE SOUTH AND WEST. Estuaries, harbours, sheltered bays and shallow soft ground in warm months. Reports are concentrated in the south and west and have become more frequent as inshore waters have warmed. It is not abundant and it is not a target, which is exactly why it is met by accident.

THE IDENTIFICATION TAKES ONE LOOK AT THE TAIL. Every Raja ray — thornback, blonde, spotted, small-eyed — has a relatively short, stiff tail carrying thorns and small dorsal fins. A stingray has a long, thin, tapering WHIP much longer than its body, with NO dorsal fins on it, and a serrated spine partway along.

AND THE DISC IS SMOOTH. No thorns, no bucklers, no prickles, and no spots or streaks. A hand run over a thornback and over a stingray is not a subtle comparison.

THE SPINE IS A VENOM APPARATUS, NOT A THORN. It is serrated with backward-facing barbs and sheathed in venomous tissue. It is designed to go in easily and come out badly, and it will penetrate a wellington boot. A ray's thorns cut; this punctures and envenomates.

THE FISH LASHES FORWARD, WHICH IS THE PART PEOPLE GET WRONG. A stingray defends itself by whipping the tail up and forward over its own back. The spine therefore reaches the hands holding the front of the disc, the arm reaching in for the hook, and the thigh the fish has been laid across. There is no safe grip that assumes the tail stays behind the fish.

SO THE CORRECT ANSWER IS OFTEN TO CUT THE TRACE. If the hook cannot be reached quickly and safely, cut as close as you can and return the fish. For most species that is a compromise. Here it is frequently the right decision, and nobody should feel they have failed by making it.

NEVER TRY TO REMOVE THE SPINE. Cutting off a stingray's spine is sometimes suggested and is both cruel and dangerous — it puts a hand at the exact point of maximum risk to mutilate an animal that is about to be released.

AND DO NOT LAY ONE ACROSS YOUR LEG. This is how people are stung through the thigh. Control the tail, keep the fish flat and away from everyone, or do not handle it at all.

IT IS ALSO A HAZARD TO PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT FISHING. Stingrays lie buried in shallow sand and mud with only eyes and spiracles clear, in exactly the water people wade through. Where the species is common, shuffling the feet rather than stepping is standard advice: a buried ray that feels a foot slide against it moves away, and one that is stepped on does not.

NOTHING HERE STATES WHETHER THIS FISH MAY BE KEPT, what minimum size applies, or whether it is protected where you are fishing. Several British skates and rays are protected in some administrations and not in others, the designations are revised, and the answer differs between England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland. Ask the fisheries authority for the water you are fishing before you go.

A stingray injury is a medical emergency and it should be treated as one from the first second. Nothing in this section is a substitute for professional medical care, and the single most important instruction is to get it.

THERE ARE THREE SEPARATE PROBLEMS and they need separate attention.

THE WOUND ITSELF. The spine is serrated with backward-facing barbs, so it lacerates on the way out as well as puncturing on the way in. Wounds bleed, and a wound to a limb can bleed significantly.

THE VENOM. It causes immediate, intense, out-of-proportion pain that typically peaks within an hour or two, along with swelling and sometimes systemic effects such as nausea, faintness, sweating and cramping.

AND WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND. Fragments of the spine and of its sheath very frequently remain in the wound. This is why infection is common and why a wound that appears to be closing may not be.

WHAT TO DO. Get the person out of the water first — a faint or a collapse in shallow water is a drowning risk and the pain can be severe enough to cause one. Control bleeding with direct pressure.

THEN HEAT. The standard first aid for this group of venoms is immersion of the wound in water as hot as the casualty can tolerate WITHOUT SCALDING, for as long as it takes to control the pain, topping it up as it cools. The venom is heat-labile and hot-water immersion is widely recommended by medical and marine-envenomation guidance for this reason. Test the water on your own skin first: a person whose limb is in pain and partly numb is not a reliable judge of temperature, and scald injuries on top of a puncture wound are a genuine risk.

GET MEDICAL HELP REGARDLESS. Retained spine fragments usually need removing, the wound usually needs proper cleaning, tetanus status needs checking, and antibiotics are commonly required because marine wound infections are aggressive.

TREAT ANY PUNCTURE TO THE TORSO, NECK OR ABDOMEN AS LIFE-THREATENING and call emergency services immediately. A stingray spine is long enough to penetrate the chest or abdominal cavity, and these injuries have killed people. Do not remove an embedded spine from the torso — stabilise it and let a hospital deal with it.

WHAT NOT TO DO. Do not apply a tourniquet. Do not cut the wound. Do not attempt to suck out venom. Do not assume that because the puncture looks small it is minor — the size of the entry wound tells you nothing about the depth, the retained fragments or the envenomation.

AND THE PREVENTION IS THE SAME SENTENCE AS ON THE REST OF THIS PAGE. If you cannot reach the hook safely, cut the trace. Never lay the fish across a leg. Control the tail before anything else, and remember that it reaches forward.

Unlike the skates and rays of the family Rajidae, stingrays do not lay eggs. The common stingray is aplacental viviparous with histotrophy: the embryos develop inside the female, first on yolk and then nourished by a nutrient-rich secretion produced by the uterine lining. The female gives birth to small numbers of live, fully formed young — typically a handful per litter — after a gestation of some months. Newborn stingrays already carry a functional spine. Growth is slow and maturity comes at several years, and the small litters make the species' reproductive output low even by elasmobranch standards.

Mating and pupping take place in shallow, warm, sheltered inshore water, which is the same ground the species feeds on and the same ground anglers and bathers use. Litters are small and produced annually at most. Because British waters sit towards the cool northern edge of the species' range, occurrence here is temperature-dependent and concentrated in warm summers in the south and west, and the British population should be understood as the fringe of a distribution centred well to the south rather than as a self-contained stock.

A bottom feeder on soft ground, taking crustaceans, molluscs, polychaete worms and small fish. It excavates prey by flapping its disc to blow sediment away — a behaviour that leaves visible pits on tidal flats — and then traps and crushes what it uncovers. That excavating habit is why the species is associated with soft sand and mud rather than hard ground, and why it will find a bait buried by tide that other species would miss.

Scent and electroreception. The ampullae of Lorenzini are particularly relevant in this species because it hunts prey buried in soft sediment and cannot see the mouth's own work — a buried worm or bivalve is located by the electric field of its tissue, then excavated. The eyes sit on top of the disc with spiracles behind them, allowing the fish to draw clean water for respiration while lying buried in sediment, which is exactly how a stingray comes to be stood on.

A warm-season visitor to British waters, reported principally in summer and early autumn in the south and west, and absent or very scarce in cold years. Occurrence is temperature-driven, and warming inshore waters are the reason reports have become more frequent rather than an increase within a stable population. Elsewhere in its range, further south, it is present through more of the year.

Not a target species in Britain in any organised sense, but an increasingly reported summer capture from estuaries, harbours and shallow bays in the south and west — and therefore a species anglers meet by accident, which is the worst way to meet a venomous animal. Its significance to FishingHQ is almost entirely safety: an angler who has never been told that Britain has stingrays will handle one like a small skate. Further south, in the Mediterranean and off west Africa, it is a more regular part of inshore catches and is also relevant to waders, bathers and divers rather than only to anglers.

TREAT THE TAIL AS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. The spine is serrated, backward-barbed, covered in venomous tissue, and mounted partway along a whip tail that the fish can lash forward over its own back — so it reaches the hands holding the disc, the leg it is laid across, and the arm reaching for the hook. It will drive through a wellington boot. IF THE HOOK CANNOT BE REACHED EASILY AND SAFELY, CUT THE TRACE AS CLOSE AS YOU CAN AND RETURN THE FISH. That is a legitimate and often correct outcome here in a way it is not for most species. If the fish must be handled, control the tail first, keep it away from everybody, and do not lay the animal across a leg. Never attempt to remove or cut off the spine. IF SOMEONE IS STUNG: this is a medical emergency and not a fishing inconvenience. Get them out of the water, control bleeding, immerse the wound in water as hot as can be tolerated without scalding, which is the standard first aid for the heat-labile venoms of this group, and get urgent medical help — spine fragments and barbs frequently remain in the wound, infection is common, and penetrating chest or abdominal wounds are life-threatening. Do not dismiss a puncture because it looks small. On welfare, the usual ray rules apply: no swim bladder, support the disc, minimal air exposure — but not at the cost of a person being stung.