Fish
Giant Guitarfish
Glaucostegus typus · also called giant guitarfish, giant shovelnose ray
The giant guitarfish looks like an evolutionary experiment — the flattened, pointed front half of a ray grafted onto the muscular body and tail of a shark. It is a harmless, retiring animal that buries in the sand and crushes crabs, and it is being wiped out because its fins are worth a fortune.
Overview
Giant guitarfish live in shallow coastal water, estuaries, and sandy flats across the tropical Indo-West Pacific, from East Africa to northern Australia. They are bottom feeders, often lying half-buried in sand, eating crabs, shrimp, shellfish, and worms crushed with flat pavement teeth. Large adults reach about 3 metres.
A shark-shaped ray
Guitarfish are rays — gill slits underneath, a flattened head — but they swim like sharks, driving with a thick muscular tail rather than flapping pectoral “wings.” With the wedgefish and sawfish, they form the informal group of “rhino rays” that bridges sharks and rays.
Harmless
The giant guitarfish has no sting and no dangerous teeth, and it is slow and shy — divers can approach a resting one easily. The only risk is handling a large one thrashing in a net.
Hunted for its fins
Guitarfish and wedgefish have large, thick fins that command top prices in the shark-fin trade, sold as premium “white fin.” This makes them a deliberate target across South and Southeast Asia, on top of heavy incidental capture in the trawls and nets that cover their shallow habitat.
Status
The giant guitarfish is Critically Endangered and has collapsed across much of its range. The “rhino rays” as a group are the most threatened marine fish family after the sawfishes. Since 2019, all giant guitarfish and wedgefish are on CITES Appendix II, and northern Australia holds one of the last relatively secure populations, but enforcement across the wider Indo-Pacific is very hard.
Giant Guitarfish: common questions
Is a guitarfish a shark or a ray?
A ray, but one that looks and swims like a shark. Guitarfish have the flattened front end and underside gill slits that define rays, but their bodies taper into a thick, muscular, shark-like trunk and tail with two dorsal fins, and they swim by beating the tail rather than flapping wing-like pectoral fins the way a stingray or manta does. Together with the wedgefish and sawfish, they occupy the evolutionary and anatomical middle ground between typical sharks and typical rays, which is why they are sometimes called "shark-rays".
Is the giant guitarfish dangerous?
Not at all. It has no venomous sting, its teeth are flat crushing plates for shellfish, and it is a shy, slow-moving bottom-dweller that spends much of its time half-buried in sand. Divers can approach resting giant guitarfish closely. The only way to be hurt by one is to handle a large struggling individual caught in a net or on a line, which can thrash powerfully. The species poses no threat to swimmers.
Why is the giant guitarfish Critically Endangered?
Its fins. Guitarfish and their relatives the wedgefish have large, thick fins that fetch some of the highest prices in the international shark-fin trade, sold as premium "white fin" for shark-fin soup. This makes them a deliberate target, not just bycatch, across South and Southeast Asia, and they are also caught incidentally in the trawls, gillnets, and longlines that blanket the shallow coastal waters where they live. They grow slowly and produce small litters, so populations cannot keep up. Assessments of the "rhino rays" as a group found them to be the most threatened marine fish family after the sawfishes, with the giant guitarfish among the worst affected.
What is being done to protect them?
In 2019, all wedgefish and giant guitarfish species were listed on CITES Appendix II, meaning international trade must be regulated and shown not to harm wild populations. Some countries within the range have introduced fishing bans or protected areas, and northern Australia holds one of the more secure remaining populations. But enforcement across the vast, heavily fished Indo-Pacific coastline is extremely difficult, and the high value of the fins is a powerful incentive to keep catching them. The species needs a combination of trade control, fishing gear restrictions, and protection of nursery habitat.