USA · Global Rhino Ray Program · Since 2020
Atlantic Guitarfish
Photo-identification, acoustic tracking, and habitat assessment of a little-known rhino ray on Florida's Atlantic coast.
Atlantic guitarfish live close to shore along Florida’s Atlantic coast, yet almost nothing has been published about their lives. We are using photographs, acoustic tracking, and field observations to learn where individual guitarfish go, how long they remain, and which coastal habitats they depend on.
The Atlantic guitarfish (Pseudobatos lentiginosus) is a small rhino ray listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Its relatives, the wedgefishes and giant guitarfishes, are now among the most threatened of all sharks and rays: a 2020 global assessment found them to be the most imperiled marine fish families in the world. MMF’s Florida team, led by Jessica Pate, began studying the species in south Florida in 2020 while surveying the same coastal waters for manta rays through the Florida Manta Project. What started opportunistically has grown into a focused research program on individual identification, movement, reproductive behavior, and habitat use.
Objectives
- Build a reliable photo-identification catalog of Atlantic guitarfish, so that individuals can be followed over time without capture.
- Characterize site fidelity, movements, and population dynamics along Florida’s Atlantic coast.
- Document reproductive behavior and life-history parameters for a species with almost no published biology.
- Assess the threats posed by coastal development, erosion, and beach renourishment to the nearshore habitat guitarfish depend on.
- Work with regional partners on a habitat-suitability assessment for the species.
What we've done
- Identified more than 200 individual Atlantic guitarfish from photographs of their spot patterns.
- Completed an acoustic-tagging study of 25 Atlantic guitarfish, tracked across a receiver network extending from Palm Beach to Miami.
What's next
- Bring the photo-identification catalog onto MantaMatcher, so new photographs can be compared with animals already recorded.
- Write up the acoustic-tracking study for publication; the results will be added here once they are out.
- Develop a habitat-suitability study, which models where environmental conditions suit the species, with researchers in Texas, and a children’s book on guitarfish for the Florida classroom program.
Support the Florida Manta Project
This guitarfish research grew from the Florida Manta Project's field program and shares its team, boats, and coastal research area. Your gift to the Florida Manta Project sustains both.
Our work on guitarfish in the western Atlantic
Recognizing individual guitarfish
Each Atlantic guitarfish carries a pattern of spots that can be compared between photographs. The team matches these patterns with the i3S pattern-recognition software, so that individuals can be followed over time without capture. Community scientists are already contributing photographs from along the Florida coast; those records expand the catalog beyond the places and days the field team can survey directly, and build a longer-term picture of where individual guitarfish are seen.
Following their movements
Acoustic tags allow researchers to detect a guitarfish when it swims within range of a listening station, an underwater receiver that logs each tag’s coded signal. The completed study tracked 25 animals along a receiver network extending from Palm Beach to Miami. Because these rays have a small body cavity, the team does not plan to repeat the tagging and will instead write up the existing data for publication.
Why guitarfish are hard to protect
Atlantic guitarfish are frequently caught in fisheries south of the United States, but US fisheries records combine them with other rays rather than recording species-specific catch. That makes it difficult to quantify fishing pressure or build a case for species-level management. In Florida, the more immediate concern identified by the project is habitat change: guitarfish occupy a dynamic nearshore zone shaped by coastal development, erosion, and beach renourishment (pumping sand onto eroded beaches).
The research program is therefore building the baseline that species-level management would need: reliable individual identification, movement data, and a clearer account of habitat use. The project has also worked with graduate researchers at the University of Miami on guitarfish physiology and feeding ecology, and is planning a joint habitat-suitability study with a Texas-based research group.
Contributing a sighting
Photographs of Atlantic guitarfish help extend the photo-identification catalog and reveal when an individual is seen again. If you photograph a guitarfish along Florida’s Atlantic coast, please send the image, with the date and location, to [email protected].
Jessica Pate
Bryant Turffs
Margo MoyerBryantTurffs.jpg)
The Florida Manta Project
Atlantic Mobula Rays
Hawaii Oceanic Manta Project