The smoothnose wedgefish (''Rhynchobatus laevis'') is a species of

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 li ...

in the

Rhinidae Wedgefishes are rays of the family Rhinidae, comprising eleven species in three genera. Classified in the order Rhinopristiformes along with guitarfishes and sawfishes, they have also been known as giant guitarfishes or sharkfin guitarfishes. T ...

family. It is found in northern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

and northwestern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, ranging from the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...

and

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...

east to

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

, and

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

to southern

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Populations elsewhere are now recognized as separate species.Last, P.R., Ho, H.-C. & Chen, R.-R. (2013): A new species of wedgefish, Rhynchobatus immaculatus (Chondrichthyes, Rhynchobatidae), from Taiwan. Pp. 185-198 in: de Carvalho, M.R., Ebert, D.A., Ho, H.-C. & White, W.T. (eds.) : Systematics and biodiversity of sharks, rays, and chimaeras (Chondrichthyes) of Taiwan. Zootaxa, 3752 (1): 1–386. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

is shallow coastal

sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...

s and off the mouths of rivers. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

and

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...

. Due to confusion with relatives it is poorly known, but it likely reaches at least in length. Its upperparts are greyish or brownish with 4–5 rows of white spots along each side; above each

pectoral fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as ...

there is a dark spot surrounded by several smaller white spots. Except for its denser white spotting, it closely resembles the

eyebrow wedgefish ''Rhynchobatus palpebratus'', the eyebrow wedgefish, is a species of fish in the Rhinidae family.Compagno, L.J.V. & Last, P.R. (2008). ''A new species of wedgefish, Rhynchobatus palpebratus sp. nov. (Rhynchobatoidei: Rhynchobatidae), from the Ind ...

(''R. palpebratus''), but their ranges do not overlap.

Sources

smoothnose wedgefish Taxa named by Marcus Elieser Bloch Taxa named by Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider Smoothnose wedgefish Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Rajiformes-stub