FEEDING HABITS OF THE RAY UROTRYGON ASTERIAS OFF THE COASTS OF JALISCO AND COIMA, MEXICO

Abstract

A total oí 547 organisms of Urotrygon asterias (Jordán y Gilbert, 1882) of the coast of Jalisco and Colima, México, the samples were taken seasonally from september 1997 to augusto 1998, were caught; 302 stomach were examined and 235 were discarded because they were empty. The Índex of relative importance (IRI) was used to determine the prey importance. This specie feeds mainly on fishremains, the stomatopods of the genus Squilla (Latreille, 1803) and Euysquilla veleronis (Schmitt, 1940), the decapods Ogyrides) alphaerostris (Holthuis, 1955), Processa peruviana (Ortmann, 1890. Feeding variations ocurres during the year and the diet varied with respect to fish length analized.