Rare Stingray

Researchers from Australia's University of Newcastle and the Batemans Marine Park discovered a species of stingray never before seen in Wagonga Inlet. The estuary stingray (Dasyatis fluviorum) has never been recorded further south than Botany Bay and disappeared from the Sydney region by the 1880s. The stingray was discovered using baited underwater video cameras which film marine life attracted to the bait. The estuary stingray have dramatically decreased in number over the past century probably due to the impact of commercial fishing which would have caught the stingray as by catch. The estuary stingray is distinguished by its extra long tail, the white marking along the edge of its body and 'tubercules' or bumps along the top of its body.

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