Pacific Guitar Shark

Photo: Brenna Green · CC BY-NC-SA

The Pacific guitarfish — a transitional form between sharks and rays — rests on sandy patches within the bay at 8 to 16 m, often partially buried and easily overlooked by inattentive divers. They are ambush predators of crustaceans and small fish, and at night become active, patrolling the sand-reef interface in lazy circuits. Encounters are most frequent on night dives, when torchlight catches their reflective eyes before the animal is otherwise visible.