Author: (Jensen, 1914)
Bathyraja spinicauda (Jensen, 1914)
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Bathyraja spinicauda (Jensen, 1914) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: snout long and soft, moderately pointed; front margins of disc almost straight to weakly undulated; tail relatively short. Upper surface entirely spinulose with rough prickles. No thorns on disc, but a median row of 21-26 thorns on tail and a thorn between dorsal fins; underside smooth, except sometimes prickles on tail. Colour: upper surfaces plain medium to light grey; underside white with a more or less distinct grey margin from outer corners to axils of pectoral fins and on hind pelvic fin lobe, also grey blotches on root of tail. Size: to about 170 cm TL.
Habitat: benthic in arctic and boreal latitudes in about 140-800 m and in water below 7.5°C, rather common, small numbers of large specimens landed. Food: all kinds of bottom animals. Reproduction: oviparous; egg cases about 130 by 90 mm (excluding horns), probably laid during summer, embryonic development estimated at about 12 months.
Distribution: eastern Greenland, Iceland and Iceland-Faroes-Shetland. Rise to coasts of Norway, up to Barents Sea, northern North Sea. Elsewhere, western Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland southward to about George's Bank.
Complementary iconography. Clark, 1931, in: Faune ichthyol. Atl. N., fiche 54.
Eggs, embryonic and young stages. Krefft, 1956: 141-144, fig. 1-2.