The epic tale of the travels and travails of Odysseus, king of Ithaca and a Greek hero of the Trojan War, is one of the greatest in the canon of ancient Greek mythology. It also contains one of the most curious deaths.
After the end of that decade-long conflict, Odysseus famously wandered for another 10 years as he attempted to travel home to his wife, Penelope. On that journey, he had a son, Telegonus, with the sorceress Circe. And on his eventual return to Ithaca, Odysseus was killed by Telegonus, stabbed with a spear that – in some versions of the tale – was tipped with a venomous barb from a stingray.
The stingray is revered as a totem among indigenous cultures in many parts of the world. It appears as a symbol on pottery and clothing created by tribes of the Amazon basin; in Māori, Aboriginal and Pacific Island cultures, stingrays are regarded as guardians of the sea.
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The reverence in which the stingray is so widely held is due in part to the fact that it can inflict serious injury – and, occasionally, death – with its venom-loaded, tail-mounted spines. Not that any of the 220-plus species of stingray throughout the world will attack a human unless handled or provoked.
Incidents do occur – the death of naturalist Steve Irwin in 2006 after his chest was pierced by a short-tailed stingray barb on the Great Barrier Reef was much publicised – but are rare.
Encounters are unusual outside subtropical waters. That said, the common stingray (Dasyatis pastinaca) is found in UK waters including the English Channel and Irish Sea, and is likely to move farther north as sea temperatures rise.
Those most at risk from a sting are anglers; in 2016, a beach fisher in Herne Bay, Kent, required hospital treatment after being stabbed by a stingray he had caught. Many anglers here are unaware of any such threat.
The common stingray has a rounded body, a less-pronounced snout than the similar-looking flapper skate – also found in UK waters – and smooth skin that is typically dark brown or olive in colour. It averages around 60cm across the wings and 5kg in weight, but can grow to 150cm and 35kg.
The stinger is located roughly halfway along the tail, which will be raised if the fish is threatened, in a pose not unlike that of a scorpion. The dagger-like stinger, which can grow to more than 30cm long on adult fish, has barbed edges and pockets of venom that are released on impact. If the stinger breaks off, a replacement will grow.
Like all rays, the common stingray’s skeleton is cartilaginous. The male has claspers either side of the tail that are used to channel sperm into a female during mating. Embryos develop inside a female and are delivered live after a four-month gestation period. A female will bear between eight and 18 young in a calendar year, and lives to around 10–16 years old. Classed as ‘Vulnerable’, the common stingray’s population is declining across much of its range.
More than 20% of the world’s stingray species are listed as ‘Vulnerable’ or Endangered’, largely as a result of overfishing.
