Skate Egg Case

This blog post is about skates and how they are like or different from rays and sharks.  Sharks, skates, and rays are like cousins.  Skate fish are flat and wide like a sting ray.  Skates live in cold water, and rays live in warm water.  Skates and rays don't have any bones.  They have cartilage like sharks.  Rays can grow up to 35 feet and skates can only grow up to 8 feet.  Rays are more active than skates.  Skates and rays eat clams and other small things.  They use their teeth to break shells and eat the inside of it.  Skates don't have barbs on their tails for stinging, but they have small spines and can give a small shock.  Skates and sharks have eggs that look almost the same, but rays give birth to live rays.

This is a picture of a fishman at Menemsha holding a skate.  

In this picture the two outer small black egg cases are skate egg cases.  The middle might be a skate egg case, but it might also be a shark egg.  I am pretty sure it is a shark egg case.  

This is a picture of a skate egg case with a baby skate in it.  The egg the case is bigger than this 12 inch ruler.  The egg cases shrink one-third of their size when they dry.  

http://www.coralreefinfo.com/coralglossary/glossary_e.htm

This is a baby skate hatching out of its egg case.  

http://aquariumofthebay.org/pages/detail/442

In this picture, you can see that the cownose ray has teeth.  

http://www.globio.org/glossopedia/article.aspx?art_id=47#