ÿÿ 00ÿÿ 00ÿ01ÿ03ÿ 01The Raja batisÿ 00
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ÿ 03ÿ02PUH / AGONY
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ÿÿ01The Raja batis is a splendid example of what we call rays (i.e. skates (rockor, ni vet fisksläktet rocka) with its sharply shaped nose and a body that is about three times longer than is the distance between its eyes. Its body is, as is the body of most rays, faintly concave, and the small back fins of its tail are smoothly spaced with respect to each other. Young examples (or, if you prefer, young individuals) have large, separate nail-like outgrowths on the area of the head (it's difficult to speak of a head where there is no such thing, if you get my point), and a row of equally large nails are found on their backs. Older examples lose these nails (do I have to say that we do not know why?). The back is scatterly coloured with small whitish and yellowish spots, while the opposite side is grey with black spots.
	As you surely knew, the Raja batis is the biggest ray of the whole Northwest Atlantic Ocean. It can, at most, reach the length of 2.5 metres, and the weight of 100 kilogrammes. It prefers soft, muddy, altering bottoms at the depth of 100 to 500 metres, even though the bottom record (got you there, didn't I?) seems to be 2700 metres (I wonder what it did there, considering that there is NO food and absolutely NO light down there?). Younger examples are, as usual, found in more shallow waters than are the older ones. The Raja batis breeds during autumn and winter, and its eggs (if you let me) are unusually big, namely 13 * 24 centimetres. The babies (if you let me again) are hatched within five months (temperature-depending as so often seen in nature), and they reach maturity at the length of one and a half metres.
	The Raja batis eats bottom-living animals such as crabs and shrimps. It (by which means the Raja batis) is fished for during autumn and winter, and it the most economically important of the Northwest European rays. It is primarily caught off the coast of  Norway, Iceland and the Faeroe Islands. It (and we're talking its meat here) is sold fresh or smoked, even though it is only "the wings" and, sometimes, parts of the back that are used. In Germany it is, as is many other rays, sold as "Seeforelle" (fucking German creeps, treating them like that!), and it has been sold under as varying names as "shrimp" and "canned lobster" throughout the 20th century.

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