Guitarfish

Photo: Brenna Green · CC BY-NC-SA

The shallow sandy areas adjacent to Poilão's reef host guitarfish — flat-bodied relatives of rays that rest motionless on the sand and are easily overlooked. They hunt invertebrates and small fish buried in soft sediment and are frequently camouflaged against the substrate by their cryptic dorsal patterning. Guitarfish are absent from most of their former West African range due to bycatch, making the Bijagós one of the last places they can be reliably found.