The order Rhinopristiformes
Shark-like rays of warm, shallow coastal seas, and among the most threatened marine fishes on Earth.
Rhino rays are the shark-like rays of the order Rhinopristiformes, which includes the wedgefishes, giant guitarfishes, guitarfishes, sawfishes, and banjo rays.
What gives them away is the mix: they have the flattened head of a ray but the tail and dorsal fins of a shark, and many live in warm, shallow coastal water over sand and reef.
Each family has its own status: there is no single Red List category for rhino rays. Choose a family to see what it is, and where we work on it.
Rhinidae
Nine of ten species assessed as Critically Endangered (2019)
Large rays up to about 3 meters (10 feet) long, including the bowmouth guitarfish, or shark ray. Our work in Mozambique centers on the bottlenose wedgefish (Rhynchobatus australiae).
Our work on wedgefishes
Glaucostegidae
All six species assessed as Critically Endangered (2019)
Rays of shallow, soft-bottomed coasts from the Mediterranean and West Africa to Australia, caught for their meat and fins across much of their range.
Rhinobatidae
Listed on CITES Appendix II (2022)
Smaller, flatter rhino rays that rest on sandy bottoms. They include the Atlantic guitarfish (Pseudobatos lentiginosus) we study in Florida.
Our work on guitarfishes
Pristidae
All five species assessed as Endangered or Critically Endangered (2013)
The giants of the group, armed with a long, toothed saw that tangles easily in nets. Sawfishes are now functionally extinct across much of their former range.
A global assessment published in 2020 found that 15 of the 16 wedgefish and giant guitarfish species are Critically Endangered. On that evidence, the two families had overtaken the sawfishes as the most imperiled marine fish families in the world (Kyne et al. 2020).
Wedgefishes and giant guitarfishes have a limited capacity to reproduce, and their shallow coastal habitats overlap with some of the most intense and increasing fisheries in the world. They are caught both as targets and as bycatch, and their meat is an important source of food for coastal communities. Their fins add a strong incentive to keep every animal caught: sold as "white" fins, they are among the most valuable in the international shark fin trade.
International protection has followed. All sawfishes are listed on Appendix I of CITES, which prohibits international commercial trade. The wedgefishes and giant guitarfishes were added to Appendix II in 2019 and the guitarfishes in 2022, so exports now need permits showing they are legal and will not threaten the species' survival. A trade listing does not stop local catch, though. Recovery depends on knowing where these rays live, feed, and breed, and on fishing communities having both the means and the reason to protect those places.
In Mozambique and Florida, photo-identification lets us recognize individual rays without catching them, building catalogs that underpin research on their movements and habitat use. At Inhassoro, photos of landed wedgefish are matched against the Mozambique catalog.
Rhino rays include the world's most threatened marine fish families. MMF studies them in Mozambique and Florida.
Sources
Marine Megafauna Foundation. (n.d.). Rhino rays. https://marinemegafauna.org/species/rhino-rays
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