Description
The Colares stingray has a diamond-shaped pectoral fin disk about as long as wide, with rounded margins and a long snout that tapers to a point. The snout of the female is shorter than that of the male, and snout edges dip in slightly near the tip. The eyes are small and followed by large spiracles. There is a flap of skin between the nares with a fringed rear margin and rounded corners. The lower lip is bow-shaped and lined by a distinctive straight, dark band. The dentition is sexually dimorphic: males have pointed, recurved teeth in 43–45 upper tooth rows and 45–60 lower tooth rows, while females have flat-crowned teeth in 66–77 upper tooth rows and 75–77 lower tooth rows. There are 3–4 papillae in a transverse row on the floor of the mouth, which may have forked tips. The pelvic fins are triangular, with the pointed tips extending past the disk. The tail is long and whip-like, measuring more than twice the disk length. A stinging spine with 69–70 serrations and sometimes a low keel are positioned on top of the tail, while a low fin fold runs underneath.
Small, flattened tubercles are randomly arranged along the dorsal midline from the base of the tail to between the eyes, thinning out towards the tip of the snout. Females also have tubercles on the underside. The dorsal coloration is a uniform light brown, becoming darker on the tail and claspers (in males), and with a light trailing margin on the pelvic fins. The underside is pale, darkening towards the fin margins. Males reach 2.07 m (6.8 ft) long and 63 cm (25 in) across, while females reach 2.61 m (8.6 ft) long and 91 cm (36 in) across.
Read more about this topic: Colares Stingray
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)