Golden cownose ray in Los Cabos

How to recognize it

A diamond-shaped ray, 1.7 to 1.8 times wider than long, pale yellowish to golden brown on top and white below, with a blackish tail. The head is the giveaway: it sticks out from the disc, the forehead overhangs the snout, and the front of the snout is deeply concave with a strong notch, which gives the “cow nose” look. The tail is slender, 1.2 to 1.6 times the length of the disc, with a small dorsal fin at its base and one or two serrated spines.

Biology

Golden cownose rays live only in the eastern Pacific, from the Gulf of California to Peru and the Galápagos, from the surface down to about 65 m. Adults stay over soft bottoms near rocky or coral reefs and drop-offs, and the species also uses coastal lagoons and mangroves. They often travel in schools, sometimes near the surface and sometimes together with eagle rays, and they can jump clear of the water. They feed on bottom crustaceans and mollusks, which they crush with flat tooth plates.

A study of 317 rays from the gillnet fishery in Bahía de La Paz found that males mature at about 68.5 cm across and females at about 71.8 cm. Only the left ovary and uterus work, and each pregnant female carried a single embryo. Ovulation and birth both happen in May, June and July, and pups measure 38 to 42 cm across at birth. With one pup a year, losses to fishing take a long time to make up.

How it's caught in Los Cabos

Golden cownose rays aren’t a sport fish. In Mexico they are caught mainly in artisanal gillnets, and fish from the greater Los Cabos area have turned up in local commercial catches. On a charter you are more likely to spot a school over sand in shallow water, from the boat or while snorkeling, than to hook one. Reef Life Survey divers record it at only a small share of the reef sites they survey.

If one takes a bait, keep it in the water and keep your hands away from the tail: the spines near its base can cause a very painful wound. Cut the leader close to the hook rather than wrestling with the ray. Sport fishing for rays isn’t allowed during the Pacific ray closed season, May 1 to July 31.

On the table

Eaten in Mexico: it is landed by artisanal gillnet fisheries and used mainly in fish tacos.

Rules, records & conservation

Its tail spines are venomous: keep clear of the tail when releasing one.

Don't confuse it with

The Pacific spotted eagle ray is dark with white spots and has a long, duck-bill snout. The bat ray (Myliobatis californicus) is olive to dark brown or black, and its head is blunt, rounded and raised, without the cownose’s notched, square front. Munk’s devil ray also swims in schools and leaps, but it is grayish, lives in open water, and its head fins roll up into horns.

Questions

By Max VargasTop Anglers, Cabo San Lucas · international judge at big game fishing world championships · reviewed October 2026

Sources

• Smithsonian STRI: eastern Pacific fishes, Rhinoptera steindachneri
• FishBase: Rhinoptera steindachneri
• Burgos-Vázquez et al. 2019, reproduction in Bahía de La Paz (Marine and Freshwater Research)
• Mexican Fish: golden cownose ray (Los Cabos records)
• Reef Life Survey: Rhinoptera steindachneri
• Smithsonian STRI: bat ray, Myliobatis californicus
• Shark and ray closed season agreement, 2012 (DOF)
• NOM-029-PESC-2006 (PROFEPA)
• NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 amendment (DOF)
• NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, 2019 update (DOF)

Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.