Fish World | Guitarfish lives under sea | The Guitarfish are a family, Rhinobatidae, of rays. The Guitarfish are known for an elongated body with a flattened head and trunk and small ray like wings. The combined range of the species is tropical, subtropical and temperate waters worldwide. They often travel in large schools.
Fishes have a guitar body to form between those of sharks and rays. The tail has a typical shark-like form, but in many species the head has a triangular, or guitar-like form, rather than the disc-shape formed by fusion with the pectoral fin rays in others.
2006 Nelson's Fishes of the World recognized four genera in this family: Aptychotrema, Rhinobatos, Trygonorrhina and Zapteryx, other taxa that were once placed in Rhinobatidae like Platyrhinoidis and Rhina, have since been moved to their own families. Recently the genus Glaucostegus again recognized as distinct from Rhinobatos. Tarsistes status is questionable.
