Some of the best encounters on a Punta Cana reef start with something that looks like nothing at all: a smooth, flat patch of sand with two small bumps on top. Look closer and the bumps are eyes, and the patch is a southern stingray, buried and resting until it decides to lift off and glide away. It is one of the classic animals of Caribbean sand flats, and the same species that made Stingray City in Grand Cayman famous.

Southern stingrays are calm and easy to watch when you give them space. They are also the reason every diver and snorkeler should know a little about stingray safety, because nearly every injury comes from someone stepping on or grabbing one.

Quick Facts

Name: southern stingray, Hypanus americanus (formerly Dasyatis americana)
Size: females are much larger than males; big females can reach about 1.5 m (5 ft) across, and the largest on record approach 2 m, while males rarely pass about 80 cm
Diet: clams and other bivalves, worms, shrimp, crabs and small fish dug out of the sand
Depth: mostly shallow water, often less than 4 m (13 ft), recorded to about 53 m (175 ft)
Habitat: sand flats, seagrass beds, lagoons and the sandy edges of reefs
Range: western Atlantic from New Jersey to southern Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico and the whole Caribbean
Status: listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN (2019)

How to Recognize a Southern Stingray

The disc is a sharp-cornered diamond, a little wider than it is long, with pointed outer tips rather than the rounded edges of many other rays. The top is plain gray, olive or brown, often dusted with sand, and the underside is white. A line of small bumps runs down the middle of the back. The tail is long and whip-like, without a tail fin, and carries a serrated, venomous spine near its base. When the ray is buried you usually see only the eyes and, just behind them, the spiracles, the openings it uses to draw in water while lying on the bottom.

Two look-alikes are worth knowing. The yellow stingray is much smaller, with a nearly round disc, a mottled yellow-brown pattern and a short tail that ends in a small fin. The whitespotted eagle ray is dark with white spots, has a pointed head that sticks out in front of the disc, and swims in open water rather than resting on the sand. We cover it in our eagle ray guide.

Behavior: Diggers of the Sand Flats

Southern stingrays find their food by smell, touch and electroreception, picking up the faint electric fields of animals hidden in the sand. When a ray finds something, it fans its wings to lift the sand away and digs a shallow pit, then crushes shells with flat, plate-like teeth. The round craters you see on sandy bottoms are often stingray feeding marks.

All that digging stirs up food for others too. Bar jacks often shadow a foraging stingray, darting in to grab small animals the ray uncovers. Watch for a jack hovering just above the sand, because there is often a ray under it. Stingrays also visit cleaning stations, holding still while small cleaner fish pick parasites off their skin.

They often rest buried during the day, and much of their feeding happens around dusk and at night, though divers regularly see them digging in daylight. Southern stingrays give birth to live pups. The embryos feed first on yolk and then on a nutritious fluid produced by the mother, and a litter is usually small, from 2 to about 10 pups, around four on average.

The sting is purely defensive. A stingray does not chase or attack people; it raises its tail only when it is pinned, stepped on or grabbed.

Where to See Southern Stingrays in Punta Cana

Southern stingrays are a fairly regular sighting on our local dives, but never a sure thing. The place to look is the sand: the patches and channels between coral heads and the sandy edges where the reef ends. Shallow sites such as El Niño, at 6 m (20 ft), are a good place for new divers to start scanning the bottom, and we also see them on our day trips to Catalina and Bayahibe.

Scan slowly and look for outlines and eyes, not for a whole ray. A puff of sand, a crater, or a bar jack hovering low over the bottom are all good clues. You can find the southern stingray on our species guide with the other animals our guides point out most often.

Tips for Divers and Snorkelers

Never touch, grab or stand over a stingray. Give it room to leave, and if it lifts off, let it go.
Keep your fins off the bottom. Good buoyancy keeps you clear of the tail and keeps the sand from clouding your view and the ray's.
Approach low and from the side, not from directly above or behind, which is how predators come in.
Wading in shallow sand? Shuffle your feet. The "stingray shuffle" warns a buried ray so it swims off instead of getting stepped on.
For photos, stay low at the ray's level and use the sand as a clean background. A buried ray with just its eyes showing makes a great image.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are southern stingrays dangerous?

Not if you leave them alone. They are calm and will swim away rather than confront you. Stings happen almost only when someone steps on, pins or grabs a ray, and the wound can be very painful and needs medical attention.

Can I see stingrays on a Discover Scuba dive?

Possibly. They live in shallow sandy areas, so they can appear on beginner dives, including our Discover Scuba Diving experience, which stays within 6 m (20 ft). Sightings depend on the day.