They “fly” smoothly through the water, flapping around the intertidal waters near rocks and kelp beds. If you look closely enough at the shallow waters, especially along the walkways of Ventura Harbor, you’ll see these graceful creatures that surprise many a Ventura resident.
With a heavy raised head and triangular shaped body, the bat ray has a dorsal fin at the base of its long whip-like tail and a stinger behind it. Their color can range from blackish to blackish-brown, to brown, with white underbellies. At their largest, bat rays have been reported to weigh up to 200 lbs. with a size of up to six feet across. The official world record of a caught bat ray weighed in at 181 lbs. at the Huntington Beach Pier in 1978 by a high school student named Bradley Dew.
The bat ray; also known as sea ray, eagle ray, mud marlin, and monkey face ray, can be found from southern Baja to Yaquina Bay, Oregon (and along the Galapagos Islands). Their species name is Myliobatis Californica, meaning in Greek: Tooth + arrow/poison and ray + location. In Mexico, the bat ray is known as raya murcielago or tecolote (owl)…