COVER N. 393 - ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA

Postmark: Antiga and Barbuda General Post Office 20-12-2023

Posted on 20 December 2023; received on the 15th January 2024 

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My second over from Antigua and Barbuda, aptly stamped with rays and sharks, fell on the letterbox yesterday, courtesy of ... guess who? Thanks Phantom!

Rays are beautiful creatures. The way they lay immobile on the sand only to literally fly across the water when they are disturbed with that graceful flapping of their ... yes, to me they look much more like wings than fins...

Looking back now, I don't feel that proud  to think about the several rays I harpooned with my speargun, when I was a kid in the Azores... sitting ducks they were... 

The stamps on the cover are half a four x 3 East Caribbean Dollar stamp mini sheet with images of rays, entitled Stingrays and Skates,  issued on 03DEC2012.

The stamps on the cover are illustrated with images of the common skate (Dipturus batis) and the  long-nosed skate (Dipturus oxyrhynchus).

The Common skate is the largest skate there is, with a length of up to 2.85 metres. It is native to the Northeast Atlantic, thus it should not be present in Barbuda. In fact it is probably not present at all or hardly present in a large part of its former distribution area since it is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN.

The Long-nosed Skate is another member of the Dipturus Genus with a similar distribution to that of the Common skate, that is, the Eastern Atlantic. It is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN.