Skates are elasmobranchs, related to sharks and rays. Although often confused with stingrays, skates do not possess the venomous tail barbs which the true rays have although many skates have thorny denticles which can be quite sharp.

Skates are bottom-dwellers, moving over the surface by undulating their wing-like pectoral fins. The mouth is located on the ventral side and contains rough, grinding plates to crush and chew their prey.

Skates lay eggs which have a tough outer covering. These "mermaids purses" are commonly found on beaches in New England, usually empty.

Skates are an important model used to study vision at the MBL.

Used at Mt. Desert Isle to study the mechanisms by which solutes are transported across the membranes of various cells and epithelia

Learn why skates are helping MBL researchers understand degenerative eye diseases like retinitis pigmentosa in "Gazing into Raja's Eyes". Bigelow, Henry B., William C. Schroeder. 1953. Fishes of the Gulf of Maine. Fishery Bulletin, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, vol 53, no. 74

Robins, C. Richard, Ray, G. Carleton, Douglass, John, 1986, A Field Guide to Atlantic Coast Fishes of North America, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston

"Marine Models in Biomedical Research", 1989, Biological Bulletin Vol. 176, p.342