The common guitarfish (''Rhinobatos rhinobatos'') is a species of cartilaginous

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Rhinobatidae. It is native to the eastern

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

. It is a bottom-dwelling fish feeding on

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can ...

s, other

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s and fish. The females give birth to live young. Its lifestyle makes it vulnerable to trawling and other fishing methods, populations seem to be declining and it has disappeared from parts of its range.

Description

The common guitarfish can grow to a length of about , but a more normal length is about . The dorsal surface is khaki-brown and the underparts are white. It is very similar in appearance to the blackchin guitarfish (''Rhinobatos cemiculus''), which shares its distribution, but is generally smaller, has larger eyes, more widely separated rostral ridges, a longer front nasal lobe and a wider back nasal flap.

Distribution

The common guitarfish is found in the north

from the Bay of Biscay to

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

and in the southern Mediterranean Sea.Guide of Mediterranean Skates and Rays (''Rhinobatos rhinobatos''). Oct. 2022. Mendez L., Bacquet A. and F. Briand.http://www.ciesm.org/Guide/skatesandrays/rhinobatos-rhinobatos It cruises slowly around just above the seabed, sometimes resting on the sand or mud and semi-covering itself with sediment.

Ecology

The common guitarfish is a benthic fish, cruising along just above the sandy or muddy seabed and foraging for

s, other

s and fish. It is an

ovoviviparous Ovoviviparity, ovovivipary, ovivipary, or aplacental viviparity is a term used as a "bridging" form of reproduction between egg-laying oviparous and live-bearing viviparous reproduction. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop insi ...

fish with one or two litters of live young being born each year, each litter being four to ten fish. The gestation period is about four months, and the young develop inside the female, obtaining nourishment from their yolk sacs at first, and later from uterine secretions of their mother.

Status

The common guitarfish lives close to the coast and breeds in shallow water. This makes it vulnerable, and it is fished, primarily as bycatch, over much of its range. In the northern Mediterranean, catches used to be landed, along with the blackchin guitarfish (''Rhinobatos cemiculus''), at fishing ports such as Palermo, but both fish are now no longer seen there and have probably been

extirpated Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

from the area. It is no longer to be seen in the Balearic Islands either. Off the coasts of West Africa, it is caught as bycatch by international shrimp trawling vessels, and by cephalopod fisheries trawling the seabed, as well as being caught by local artisanal

gill net Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...

fishermen. Its meat may be salted and exported and its fins sold to Asia. It may be safest in the southern Mediterranean where the fishing is less intensive and it is still sometimes landed, but even there, most of the fish landed are immature. For the fish to have a long-term future and the fisheries to be sustainable, the adult fish need to be allowed to mature and breed. There is no special conservation plan for this fish and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...

has assessed its conservation status as being " critically endangered".

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3496840 Rhinobatos Fish of the Atlantic Ocean Fish of the Mediterranean Sea Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus